Council of Elders July 2026

Transcript lightly edited for readability — filler and crosstalk trimmed, tool and proper-name spellings corrected. Speaker attributions added where clear.

00:08 — Site tour

Ian (host): Welcome to Council of Elders for July 2026. Before the questions, a quick tour, because it shows off the new website changes. Finding the Council archive: go to the hub page, hit advanced search, and search tags for “council” — every tag stacks up top, and each filter clears with its X. It’s all stackable: author + type + tag — every video Doug has done about frets, two clicks. Filters apply live as you set them; no apply button needed. Posting: the new-post button (big plus on mobile), pick or type a forum, add photos, comma-separated tags, opt into the weekly email — and if you’ve done something embarrassing, post anonymously. Just know that I can still find out who you are, so if you post a treatise about ancient aliens, men in black will be dispatched appropriately. Up top you’ve now got Random (three years deep — some posters aren’t members anymore, so don’t take it personally if they don’t write back), Newest, Trending (Buck wired it in; we’ll get it dialed), and the killer new one: Save. See something interesting, hit save, and it’s waiting in your Saved list. Hats off to Buck for that one.

06:10 — Q1. The Gibson MK-72 tail block

Ian: Daryl Pope: “Tail block is completely loose — looking for recommendations on the nasty side crack at the edge of the tail block. My initial thought is the top or back needs to come off to properly glue and clamp the main split.” I followed up — the block is loose from both top and back. My first inclination was down-and-dirty: get everything back in place and glue it with good epoxy. And the spare-no-expense version: cut the side, slide the block out, clean everything up, re-glue, and do a partial side replacement back to the tail block. Rebuttals?

Doug Proper: I don’t disagree with the assessment — but the post title says Gibson MK-72, which is about a thousand-dollar guitar. Once you’re talking side replacement — even taking the back off — on a thousand-dollar guitar, that repair is better solved with a can of Zippo lighter fluid and a match. On my bench this gets the most effective, least invasive approach, not the herculean make-it-like-the-factory approach — we’re talking about hip surgery on a Beanie Baby. Your biggest opportunity is sitting right in the middle of the picture: the output jack. Get creative inside, squeeze the pieces together through the block, line up top and back, spatulas and glue, a little reinforcement either side of the block through the soundhole — and hide the evidence in the darkness of the wood. Start grafting side sections and you’re into grain fill and respray on a guitar where I don’t even see a $500 repair.

Dan: I kind of agree — it depends what you see inside; get pictures. I’d pull that end-pin jack and use the hole as a clamp with a rod through it, a big 1/16″ plexiglass caul to pull the broken piece in. If the block’s separated top and bottom, slide really thin Teflon in and leave those open while the block glues up. It won’t be pretty, but if it comes flush it’s not impossible to make it look halfway decent. And make sure how much the owner cares before you start — it’s not worth a ton of money. I’m not sure I’d even do Doug’s version for $500; flood it with epoxy and hope the outside looks decent — inside doesn’t matter.

Doug: The rule: don’t let repairs exceed the instrument’s inherent value. If the customer later regrets saying yes, they can still sell the guitar and recover the repair money — but put $5,000 of work into a $1,000 guitar and you own that guitar forever, emotionally speaking.

15:19 — Q2. Re-topping the Stella parlor

Ian: John Layman — who’s here, so jump in — is repairing a damaged Stella parlor: original 100-thou birch top, ladder-braced with multiple beefy braces, irreparably split and warped. New top is Adirondack spruce, thinned to ~110 at the sides and 125 at the bridge, 28-foot radius. Questions: thin it further? And are pure pyramidal half-by-three-quarter braces adequate, with more bass-side spread on the lower bout to open up the bass?

Michael Bashkin: I haven’t built ladder-braced, but I’ve worked on a couple. The top is probably fine where it is — depends on the individual piece of spruce. Half-inch wide by three-quarters tall is a beefy spruce brace; that will support the top just fine. I don’t think splaying the braces toward the bass side actually produces more bass — my opinion; worth a shot if you want. But remember this is a tailpiece guitar with a floating bridge: the forces on that top just aren’t much. And that original wide, low slat in the middle — an eighth thick under the bridge — looks like a lot of mass doing nothing. I wouldn’t discredit the original makers, but there wasn’t a lot of acoustic thought in a 100-thou maple-slab ladder job. Look at the Selmer-Maccaferri pattern: two narrow braces either side of the bridge, roughly 10 mm wide by 17 tall, with feet connecting them into a box under the bridge — a very efficient way to distribute tailpiece pressure without loading the top with weight.

John Layman: The originals were more like 5/8 by one and square — massive, holding together entertainment-center slabs. That gives me a lead forward. I’ll go look up the Selmer. Bye!

23:00 — Q3. Purfling that won’t bend

Ian: John again: first attempt at making purfling to match a repair — six plies, four of StewMac’s 23-thou dyed veneer plus two maple at 25, glued with Titebond veneer glue, stacked to 140, dried two days — and it delaminates and cracks on the bend.

Michael Bashkin: Switch your glue. Titebond III takes bending heat but stays relatively flexible; the veneer glue is engineered for zero creep — stiff — and that’s likely your whole problem. I had the identical failure with Gorilla polyurethane; Titebond III fixed it. You don’t need two days — glue up in the morning, bend in the afternoon. If it still fights you, bend as two 70-thou stacks. Technique: glue the sandwich flat, rip strips off it with a fret-slotting blade, then gang several strips together with tight tape before bending — or tape the purfling to a piece of binding as a carrier — so nothing twists. Get enough glue in the joint; dry joints delaminate in the bend. And since Titebond III is water-based, the veneers will want to curl during glue-up — keep the sandwich clamped flat between boards until you rip strips.

James Roadman: There’s also Titebond 50 — an industrial glue sold in 55-gallon drums, but you can find small quantities on Etsy. Same properties as regular Titebond except it deliberately lets go at high heat — so the plies can slip past each other during the bend and stay glued after. That creep buildup John described, where the excess can’t release down the strip? That’s exactly what it’s for. I haven’t used it much yet, but it’s on my list.

Ian: And Michael did a three-part series on bindings and purflings — watch me find it live with the new search: author Bashkin, videos, “purfling” — three results. Nice work, Michael. John, you’re also freehanding on a shorty bending iron with Spanish Inquisition nails and rubber bands — back-side support is the big deal. You could fashion a front-and-back form from MDF and press it with a heat blanket. (John: “A side bender is not something I’m likely to buy soon.” — Fair; that idea comes from pipe-dream territory. Grain of salt.)

34:10 — Q4. Top splines on the ’69 Di Giorgio

Ian: Aaron Jones: when are top splines necessary? A 1969 Di Giorgio Autor Nº 3 from São Paulo — Brazilian rosewood, spruce top, bought new in Brazil by the owner, heavy sentimental value, maybe $1,500–2,500 after repair. Both remaining cracks are glued with full-length TJ cleats; the lower-bout crack was gappy and dirty and got splined already — more work than the estimate anticipated.

James Roadman: Nice work on that spline — grain line running right down the middle. When you’ve reasonably rehumidified and a crack still won’t close, you’re out of options: spline it. I’d spline the one along the neckline, and check the brace joints — the neck’s forward pull makes the shear strength of those joints critical.

Doug: General rule: if the two pieces of wood don’t meet, you’re in splint territory — no glue will close that soundhole-side crack. And let’s puncture a myth: hide glue does not magically pull wood together. Nothing about glue does. What closes a crack is water — the hygroscopic swelling of the wood around the crack, which any water-based glue provides, warm hide glue a little more so. So run the experiment before you commit: do a dry run with plain water, plexiglass cauls both sides to keep the moisture in, clamps on, overnight. If you come back and it’s pulled itself together — the water did that — let it breathe until the crack just re-opens, then glue and re-clamp, and it will close. If the dry run leaves light showing through, you know you’re cleating and splinting before you’ve pumped glue in and sealed the end grain against any second chance. And sequence matters: the time to put in a splint is before you cleat — full-length TJ cleats mean you now have to cut through your own cleat to get a splint in. Mixing techniques in the same soup has to be done methodically.

43:12 — The estimate sermon

Doug: On “I did more work than the estimate, I’ll revise it and let the customer decide”: sentimental value versus market value is the customer’s call — it’s not for us to tell anyone what a guitar is worth to them. But “I did a lot of extra work on your guitar, want to pay me more?” is never a conversation to have after the fact. No customer on the planet wants to pay more; the polite ones will pay and leave feeling taken for a ride, and you’ll never hear about it. If I make an executive decision the customer didn’t pre-authorize, that’s on me — I’m contributing to the repair out of my own pocket. With a basket case like this, the move is up front: “I want to take this approach, but these cracks may force splints — here’s that cost; does that change whether you leave it with me?” Then when the cul-de-sac arrives, you pause, call, and they were already warned.

Ian: One more random thought, Aaron — that top is generally unstable, and customers don’t understand best-efforts on unstable things. I love my wife, but when she gets an oil change and the windshield wipers quit, it’s “well, they worked before the oil change.” This guitar has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel; taking it on at all should come with a lot of caveats. The materials are regional and probably all suspect — that bridge looks like dyed hardwood, because a piece of ebony clearly wasn’t in the cards in São Paulo in ’69. But you’ll get through it. You always do.

49:25 — Wrap

Ian: So — we have demonstrated, once again, that we cannot build a time machine on the Looth. That’s the regular questions; nobody’s bonking their head on anything live, so we’ll put a pin in it there. Have a good rest of your Thursday. Adios. Gracias.