Kiso-Suzuki Classical – M.i.J.

Not a particularly valuable guitar, but a challenging project, and one worth doing. This Japanese Kiso-Suzuki classical is from 1973 and probably would have been a mid-grade instrument in its day – something a little higher than a student model.

When I got it the tuners were broken and so was the neck block. Someone had put a bolt through it at some point, so it looked really ugly. The whole top was sunken in also. It spent a few days in the humidor, then I reset the neck block break and hid the existing bolt hole with a strap button. Then I built a pulling device and super heated the sound board and top upper brace with steam. Slowly then I applied pulling pressure until the top was flat again. Then I let it sit in the clamps and cool for a day. Everything seemed good and solidly flat when it was done. New tuners, new bone saddle and some new strings and it plays pretty good actually. I’m afraid I wasn’t very good at photographing the repair steps on this one, but the afterward pics show how it turned out.