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#1
09-07-2022, 09:40 AM
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building a new guitar from an older guitar
Has anyone ever replaced a laminate top with a solid wood top? I have an old Como 6 string from the late 1970's and the top is badly warped. I plan to take the top off and replace it with a solid spruce top. The back and sides are laminate and I don't know what the neck is made out of. This guitar is very beat up and there is extreme wear on the fret board. I'm not worried about wrecking this guitar if I make a mistake. It's unplayable right now due to the saddle being chipped and cracked(I think it's an adjustable saddle and that the saddle is ceramic). Any idea helps. Thanks.
P.S. If anyone knows anything about Como guitars, that would be great.(I think they were a cheap sears guitar) 
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#2
09-07-2022, 10:35 AM
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I have an Ibanez herringbone dreadnought guitar that I bought new then sold to a friend who later put his foot through it during a domestic argument, then gave it back to me. I am hoping to retop it someday but it seems to be a lot of work and could just buy a new laminate guitar for $200.
If you do the job, I hope you post pics, I have built guitars but not sure how I'd go about taking it apart.
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#3
09-07-2022, 11:21 AM
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Hopefully I get around to it soon, I'm trying to learn everything I can before taking things apart.
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#4
09-07-2022, 03:17 PM
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a thought
Take A LOT of pictures and take lots of measurements. Use bracing layout from one of the accepted sources and not just copy what was on the original top. Plan on replacing the fretboard, truss rod, nut, tuners, and bridge (Ebay is your friend). Anything you buy will be better than what the guitar originally had, and stay inexpensive. About all remaining will be the neck and the body less the soundboard. You will be doing more than half the work of building a guitar from scratch. After refinishing the kept parts and finishing the new parts, this guitar will look and play brand new. It's an ambitious project, and every difficulty somebody's seen before. Ask before leaping. Patience is a virtue.
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#5
09-07-2022, 07:13 PM
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I've always wanted to build my own guitar to my own standards, but I don't have the machinery or tool necessary. The nut and saddle will have to as they are both damaged. One of the bridge pins doesn't match and the rest are just old. They will be replaced. I do hope the original truss rod can stay though, but I won't know till I have it checked out. The tuners are actually quite nice, I had originally planned to take them off and keep them for an emergency. Someone must have liked their D and A chords as there are actual grooves into the wood on the fretboard. I don't know how to fix that.(probably wood filler or something)
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#7
09-08-2022, 03:35 AM
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To retop you have either to remove the neck (with fretboard attached), or remove the fretboard. The top is glued to the neck block under the fretboard extension.
Neck removal would be ... interesting ... because you probably can't find out what kind of neck joint is there. I had this issue on a no-name Japanese guitar I fixed up for a friend - steaming the dovetail didn't work, so I removed part of the fingerboard and found - a dovetail! But the glue just wouldn't let go with heat (some SE Asian made guitars from that period used a mystery glue which just stays stuck). Eventually I cut the neck off and made it a bolt-on. So if the fretboard is coming off either way, it will be a lot quicker and less effort to buy a pre-slotted board and fit that instead. You can also then inspect the truss rod and replace if needed.
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#8
09-08-2022, 05:19 AM
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Cool! I know a lot of guitars are built different in their own way, that's why I wanted to do some research on Como guitars but there's hardly any information about them anywhere.
Last edited by 12stringaddict; 09-08-2022 at 08:22 AM.
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