Restoring old guitars

Alan Hickey

New member
Partly because I'm broke, and partly because I love the sound of old parlour-sized guitars, I'm thinking of buying an old all-solid birch or mahogany guitar like a Stella Harmony and refinishing it.

It seems to me like you can get an £800 sounding guitar for well under £200 if you're lucky and do it well.

I like the sound of this one here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWv0DUXt-wQ

I think because it's been refinished and had the heavy lacquer stripped off, it sounds much brighter and newer than the average vintage acoustic. So I would want to do the same. Put on a new bridge and nut and maybe some newer machine heads.

I'm aware that necks warp over time, if I got one with a warped neck, how difficult/expensive would it be to sort out?

Has anyone done anything like this and can provide me with some advice or things to watch out for?
 
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