Repairing Alexander Chernetsky's Guitar

One of the most rewarding things about guitar repair is the occasional chance to give something back to great musicians whose music inspires you to play the guitar in the first place.

Here's an emergency repair I did on Alexander Chernetsky's Washburn.

While playing at the Echo-2006 festival in Upstate New York, Sasha drops the guitar and cracks the neck. His fingers snag on the splintered wood and bleed. Sasha continues to play.



Drops of blood inside the guitar.



The fretboard has separated from the impact, not at the original seam, but splitting the wood along the neck. The nut came off too, only string pressure holds it in place.



Emergency night-time repair! It's 3 a.m., and at 8 in the morning Sasha has to fly out to perform with this guitar in San Francisco.





I did everything possible in this brief amount of time. The repair didn't come out too pretty, but it is solid and functional. The neck is smooth and playable again. To make it look good, the surface would need to be prepared more carefully and then touched up with black lacquer. Such work doesn't get done in a couple of hours, though. There will have to be several coats of lacquer, with sanding and buffing in between, and each coat must have time to dry. This will be done at home, in St. Petersburg, when Sasha has the time to leave his guitar with a luthier for several days.



In the meantime, this old soldier is back on active duty!

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