Repair / Restoration
High quality classical and flamenco guitars should be built with repairability in mind. This means using reversible glues when practical (like hide glue) and using designs and construction methods which lend themselves to future repairs. Because I started my lutherie career working in a high end repair shop, I learned first hand why this is important. Like violins, all guitars will eventually need some maintenance and repairs. Unlike violins however, many guitars are not built to be repaired, either due to their design or methods of construction. In simple, some can be fixed, some cannot. If the guitar was built with epoxy glue, and finished with an industrial U.V. cure finish, the luthier is limited with how he can approach a repair. On the other hand if the guitar is made with hide glue and french polished there's a good chance the luthier can do an excellent and non-invasive repair job.I do a lot of french polish repair work, which may entail refreshing the finish and filling dings. Re-frets, set-ups, and structural repairs are commonly needed.
I enjoy working on quality made luthier and factory instruments, old or new, it does not matter.
Here are pictures from some recent and not so recent repair jobs:
Ramirez 1A



Here's a photo of the neck block and side after completion. It turned out very well! The total time logged on this repair was about 50 hours. I've excluded other pictures of the repair but you can contact me if you want to see more of them.

Here is a photo of a guitar built by Miguel Rodriguez. It was brought to my shop for some French polish touch up. The top is redwood, back and sides are Brazilian rosewood.

The guitar was brought to me for a bunch of relatively minor repairs. Here, a top crack gets glued together with hide glue. The crack will later be cleated on the inside, and touched up on the outside. Oil varnish was Manuel's finish of choice.

Its neck was badly warped, possibly because it was built with white glue and suffered "joint creep" over time. I removed the fingerboard, routed a channel in the neck, inserted a graphite rod in the neck, and replaced the fingerboard. This fixed the neck warpage.