Carolina Luthier Guitar Repair

09/10/2026

A little surgery on a 30's Gibson L30. There was some serious water damage on the the back of this old archtop; a couple cracks, a prominent wrinkle, and all the back braces were loose with one missing. Doing any major internal work on an archtop usually requires removing the back so the first thing I did was finish removing the back which had already started to separate. Once I did that, I pressed out the wrinkle and glued and reinforced the cracks. Once the back was straight and in one piece, I glued the loose braces and replaced the one that was gone. I then glued it back together, and refinished the back. Now it's good as new with almost no sign of the past trauma.

06/21/2026

Got the Gibson Granada Tenor conversion finished. This one turned out great. One of the best sounding and playing banjos I've heard in awhile

06/18/2026

Finishing up a neck for Gibson Granada tenor conversion. Sometimes the old way is best. Hand polished varnish gives a nice soft luster somewhere between gloss and satin. I developed my own varnish mix years ago as a gunsmith. It is super durable and brings out the figure of the wood far better than nitro. Hand polishing gives a nice aged look that will better match the original finish on the old banjo this neck is going on. I finish all of my banjos this way.

06/11/2026

Managed to save this old Martin tenor guitar. This 5-17T had busted out at the bridge and someone had crudely glued a patch and a standard six string guitar bridge onto it to hide the damage. It also had several cracks and was pretty chewed up around the soundhole. I removed the bridge and refinished the top to get rid of the shadow of the six string bridge. While I was at it, I also patched the missing wood around the soundhole and repaired the cracks. I made and installed a new bridge that is slightly oversized to hide the old patch but much closer in style and dimensions to the original tenor bridge. Now it plays like new with no sign of the past abuse.

05/21/2026

A little custom inlay work. Added a gold Pearl Flowerpot inlay to head of this J45.

04/16/2026

I'm a banjo guy at heart so I always love working on banjos. Just finished up the restoration of a nice Mike Ramsey banjo that was severely damaged in a fire. Apparently, it was sitting on a stand in the corner of a room where the fire started. The rim was fine but the neck was pretty charred up. I had to replace the binding that had melted as well as the tuners. I also had to replace some of the inlays as they had become far too brittle to engrave again after sanding. Finally I refinished and refretted the neck. Now it's as good as new with no sign of damage.

04/05/2026

03/14/2026

This Martin D18 experienced some serious water damage. The finish was in decent shape but the back had almost completely separated from the sides, the binding was gone and every single back brace was loose. I glued it back together and replaced the binding, now it's good as new, with no sign of the previous trauma

02/06/2026

Replaced an old adjustable bridge with a new fixed bridge on a Gibson SJ. Adjustable bridges were convenient but you get a lot more sound transmitted to the top with a traditional fixed bridge.

01/04/2026

Crack repair on an old Martin

In this video I show a back crack repair on a 1934 Martin 00-17