Martyn Hodgson lute - refurbishment
Repair completed - spring 2014.
An early Martyn Hodgson lute came in for some refurbishment work. An 8 course lute with an attractive back made of figured sycamore with a golden varnish.
To improve its playability, the customer requested that the instrument be converted from an 8 course instrument to a 7 course one. This was primarily to improve the string spacing in the right hand where the courses were rather close together. A new peg box was planned, reusing the existing pegs, the neck shaped accordingly, and the worn fingerboard would be replaced.
The main changes comprised:
- bridge hole spacing adjustment - fill existing holes and redrill for 7 courses
- neck reshaping and new fingerboard - a narrower tapered neck to accomodate the reduced number of strings.
- new pegbox - to replace the existing open backed pegbox, reusing the existing pegs.
- varnish and refretting
Below are some photos of the refurbishment.
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Original lute.  |
Closeup of older style 8 course pegbox with open back design. Many of the pegs had no travel left in them.  |
Removing the fingerboard. A chisel can be necessary to remove fingerboards attached with synthetic glues. But it was due to be replaced.  |
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Removing the old pegbox, which was attached to the back of the fingerboard.  |
After the neck was reshaped, a new fingerboard was created. The photo shows the fine shavings created by scraping the malaysian ebony.  |
A new pegbox made and attached, ready to be varnished.  |
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Varnishing the neck and fingerboard with an oil varnish, to blend in with the rest of the instrument  |
Varnishing complete  |
Finished now as a 7 course lute - showing reshaped neck.  |
Contact us if you have a lute that needs refurbishing or some TLC.
See other repair and refurbishment and setup examples.