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Demolished Martin DXM

This guitar was basically brought to me in a plastic bag. I don't know all of the details involved with it, but it was smashed on purpose for some reason. The fee for repairing it was basically as much as one of these would cost used, but I think the culprit paid to have it done as a kind of personal repentance. The top, back and sides are made of what Martin refers to as "high pressure laminate", which I think is a fancy way of saying "Formica" (countertop material). This material makes a decent enough guitar, although I think it lacks a certain midrange punch. The good thing is that it doesn't react adversely to sudden humidity changes the way a solid wood guitar might.

This repair is the non-cosmetic variety, where the goal is simply to put the pieces back together and make the guitar playable again without worrying about things like filling in or masking the repair seams. Overall, the guitar turned out well and came out of the ordeal with nice action and a good sound. Here's how it all went down:

(Click on any picture for a larger view)

This is how the whole mess looked when it was handed to me.

The longest back brace was missing, so I made a new one and glued it in.

I glued the side piece to the top side using Titebond and held it with masking tape. Luckily, almost none of the original kerfing was missing.

This view shows the unglued back side. The crack in the middle of the screen is a smaller break in the side piece that was glued before the whole piece was put back on.

Next, I glued the back to the side piece and used a couple of long clamps to hold down the ends of the broken piece while I glued them with epoxy.

This is another view of the previous shot. You can see that some of the rosette is missing, but this was left alone as a strictly cosmetic issue.

This is the repaired side piece. It may not be cosmetically gorgeous, but it holds together soundly.

This is the headstock after being glued back on with epoxy. Luckily, it was a pretty clean break, so it went back together without much trouble.

To the right is the completed repair. It now plays well, sounds good and the pickup still works, too. Overall, it was a fun challenge and I'm happy with the way it turned out.