The Hub

Hey y'all,

Got another interesting job I'd like some advice on. It's a 70s yamaha classical the current owner inherited from his father. At some point it developed a rather nasty top crack, to the point that I'm thinking the job would involve fresh spruce being applied in there. That's routine enough at least, albeit uncommon for New Zealand's climate in my experience so far. (Also open to suggestions on cleaning out the crack to accept new wood, I assume we might have to remove the very edges to get that gunk cleaned away. It's an old old crack.)

But also, more importantly and interestingly, the crack had an attempted repair, I think by the father, and I'm wondering how to approach that. I worry it will involve removing the repair, which working through the soundhole at that... I've got a baby finger plane and a lot of patience, but is there a better way? It's not a super valuable guitar, so I can't get too in the weeds and sink weeks into it, but also I am willing to go an extra mile or two given the sentimentality.