About the service
Balalaikas, domras and gusli come to my bench with the same complaints: the instrument will not play in tune along the neck, the frets buzz under the fingers, the pegs will not hold a string, the neck has pulled forward, a seam in the body has opened. I start with an inspection, not with a repair. I read the relief of the neck under full string tension, measure the action at the nut and at the twelfth fret, tap the soundboard listening for loose bracing, and look for opened seams and old amateur glue joints. If the instrument is old or valuable, that inspection ends with a written estimate: what has to be done now, what can wait a season, and what I would advise against doing at all. Nothing irreversible happens without the owner's agreement - no sanding through original varnish, no drilling peg holes oversize, no replacing a part that can still be saved.
One request before you bring anything in. Do not treat a cracked soundboard or a lifting neck joint with glue from a tube. Household glues neither soften nor release along the joint, and after them a proper repair becomes impossible: the seam has to be cut out together with sound wood, and the instrument loses far more than the crack ever took from it. Folk instruments are assembled with reversible glue that a maker can open again in twenty years, and that is the only kind I use on a body seam or a neck.
Keep the instrument away from dry air. A radiator under the window, a winter room with no humidifier and the luggage hold of an aircraft are the three most common causes of the soundboard cracks I see, and all three are avoidable.
What I do:
— inspection, diagnosis and an estimate before any work begins;
— levelling, recrowning and polishing of the frets;
— replacement of worn frets, singly or the whole neck;
— cutting and fitting a new nut and bridge to the player's hand;
— setting string height and checking intonation along the scale;
— fitting geared machine heads or restoring and refitting wooden pegs;
— reglueing an opened body seam with reversible hide glue;
— closing a soundboard crack and reinforcing it from the inside;
— choosing strings to suit the instrument and your playing style;
— cleaning the body and caring for the varnish without polishing it away;
— usual turnaround five to ten days, complex work up to two weeks;
— advice on storage in a case with a humidifier.
One request before you bring anything in. Do not treat a cracked soundboard or a lifting neck joint with glue from a tube. Household glues neither soften nor release along the joint, and after them a proper repair becomes impossible: the seam has to be cut out together with sound wood, and the instrument loses far more than the crack ever took from it. Folk instruments are assembled with reversible glue that a maker can open again in twenty years, and that is the only kind I use on a body seam or a neck.
Keep the instrument away from dry air. A radiator under the window, a winter room with no humidifier and the luggage hold of an aircraft are the three most common causes of the soundboard cracks I see, and all three are avoidable.
What I do:
— inspection, diagnosis and an estimate before any work begins;
— levelling, recrowning and polishing of the frets;
— replacement of worn frets, singly or the whole neck;
— cutting and fitting a new nut and bridge to the player's hand;
— setting string height and checking intonation along the scale;
— fitting geared machine heads or restoring and refitting wooden pegs;
— reglueing an opened body seam with reversible hide glue;
— closing a soundboard crack and reinforcing it from the inside;
— choosing strings to suit the instrument and your playing style;
— cleaning the body and caring for the varnish without polishing it away;
— usual turnaround five to ten days, complex work up to two weeks;
— advice on storage in a case with a humidifier.
