Martin Backpacker guitar Repair

Long story short, a friend stepped on his Martin Backpacker, smashing the back.
He was resigned to the fact that he had just created himself a wall hanger.
I told him I thought I could fix it one way or another.
Weeks went by but it eventually ended up in my hands via another mate.

the top was fine. It has been signed by a protege of Tommy Emmanuel's, Jie (?)Robinson, who now plays in Nashville...

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...Martin/015.jpg


http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...Martin/012.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...Martin/016.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...Martin/013.jpg

The back was another story:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...Martin/017.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...Martin/023.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...Martin/024.jpg

It was all there.
I wanted to fix the back rather than remove and replace it, but the latter was an option if needed
The little guitar had travelled for years with Michael and I wanted to save as much if it as possible, and wanted to try the challenge of a repair like this.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...7DE3EC02A4.jpg

The bigger bits were removed, and an internal brace was glued back in position

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...87AB67015D.jpg

Outside edge was repaired first. The pieces had to be replaced and glued in a certain order due to the way the edges were fractured, otherwise it would be way too difficult to get the last piece in. The small white painted dowel at the bottom of the pic was placed in to stop the back from caving in whilst pieces were being replaced. It kept the bottom level and flat, otherwise there would be a sunken area.


http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...1700152082.jpg

Also the sides wanted to spring out, got to love Irwin clamps

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...4F6EFA2704.jpg

Jimmy Cargill or his dad Merv would fix it, cant recommend them enough.

http://www.cargillcustomguitars.com.au/

But it seems you have in under control Stan

In the area where small bits had splintered, there weren't any pieces to replace, so I made up a filler/paste:
Dragging a blade down the back, with the grain, yielded dust a bit like when sanding. I initially mixed this with CA glue and rubbed it into the shattered area, the CA is very thin and runs into the timber, sealing up the parts that were cracked, but not broken, the dust was mixed in with this to form a paste to fill the small shattered out bits.
Whilst a very strong and effective repair, I was later to find out it took mega sanding to get any stain to penetrate... Live and learn

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...832F4CF1FE.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...165187AA3C.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...94F246CFE2.jpg

Piece by piece the broken bits and splinters and shards went back together:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...E1BC1BACD1.jpg

Small edge crack fixed with filler method:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...7A5047859B.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...C145B16567.jpg

After more of an inspection , I noticed a small crack between the body and the back on the opposite side the the main repairs.
Easy fixed: wedge, glue (Titebond) and clamp.
Titebond was used for all the main gluing

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...F5C20C5796.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...EFB113FFF5.jpg

The whole back was then totally sanded back, and taped up , then stained.
I used Feast Watson dark teak:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...9E838C99FE.jpg

More layers make it darker and also hide the joins better:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...20B198EC61.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...0C74DAA01E.jpg

More rubbing back and more stain...

A few minor dings were filled with a light Timbermate and restained.
Whilst the repair was not perfect, that kind of worked in a way as it was another chapter in the well lived life of this little traveller.

The whole body of the guitar was very dry, and I am guessing it originally had some sort of oiled finish, now long dried out.

So on went the Danish oil:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...A4B45D2C81.jpg

The tuners were left on and I worked around them, turned out fine:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...348B4DC781.jpg

So after working around the strings for so long, I decided on taking them off, which is what I should have done in the first place

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...6B1D894B73.jpg

I think it turned out OK :

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...85496700_1.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...F2A246F172.jpg

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...7D2B01E1E1.jpg

Excellent job Stan

Guitar was restrung with Elixer nanowebs in 12s, and it sounds mellow and nice for such a little guitar. Micheal was please with the finished result and said the tone had not suffered.
Michael got his guitar back , he played it a lot that day, I am half a dozen bottles of fine Shiraz better off and the traveller lives again, not as a wall hanger , but a played and loved instrument .

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/j...0495B608E1.jpg

Haha, so now you know why it takes me forever to get a guitar finished , I keep taking on repairs...

I do love the challenge and results so far though

Great repair Stan. Always interesting reading your repair posts.

Great job Stan, well gone given new life to something that might of been lost.

Thanks Tony, I appreciate the feedback

Thanks kimball, my thoughts exactly, I didn't want to see it get retired

Nice one Stan :)

Excellent repair job Stan

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

Thanks DB and Andrew!!

Amazing. Absolute study in patience and perseverance. Looks great.

Mate, that's an awesome job! The repair isn't obvious, but a part of the guitar's history now... every traveller has it's scars.

A friend of mine used to have a guitar that looked alot like one of these traveler guitars.

@waskelly, thank you, yep I took my time

@ swanny, cheers, character and original bits, I agree totally. It was glued in one piece at a time and a one day wait between that and the next piece so the glue was cured

@ Dr Nomis, there is a traveller and backpacker version of this guitar, they both look pretty similar

Hi Stan - you da man!

Seriously, roughly how many hours would you have spent on that sort of repair?

Great job. Always nice to see a well used "thing", be it an instrument, a tool, anything, brought back from the brink. Really quite rare in these throw away days.

Hey thanks Rabbs
I glued in one piece per day, once I worked out what order to put the pieces back in
A light sand between each piece
Fill and sand gaps once it was all glued up, and some along the way
A couple of layers of stain in a day, couple of days there
Danish oil, two layers, a day between...
All in all it took about 10 days in total

I salute you mighty Overlord! That is an epic repair saga, this is why i love this forum, click a link and it takes you to new learning experiences. Well Done!