Repair of a 1908 Montgomery Ward Keystone parlor guitar. Actually these were considered “standard” sized at this time in history…
	Side crack shows that this is not Brazilian rosewood laminate but solid birch with a really good faux finish- it convinced the experts at Guitar Emporium…
	Even birch can crack when it is 112 years old. The finish will get some touchup but I will not refinish it as that will take away its character. Sort of like erasing wrinkles.
	These old tuners have seen their better days, they are seized and the knobs are missing. Can't turn several of these even with pliers...
	Crack one of two in the soundboard from the inside perspective. That will never close no matter how much I humidify it, but several days of intense humidification inside and out will close the gap some before repairing and cleating.
	After working a probe and palette knife into the lower bout crack, I was able to realign the bad crack and clamp it before using CA glue incrementally to reattach the sides of the crack. Much better than I expected!
	Final crack alignment- I worked around it about half an inch at a time hitting it with CA and accelerator at points, then will use capillary action of the thin viscosity glue to solidify the crack. I do not think I will even need to cleat this, though I was prepared to with birch popsicle sticks make into cleats.
	The finished glue job, now I will touch up the finish a bit as well.
	Filled with gap filling CA and a razor scraping to level everything before polishing- which will take me through 4 levels of polishing. This is the most time intensive part of the repair.
	The binding was missing from about an inch and this will take some realigning as well. I will polish out the bad finish but not disrupt it much.
	Removing the tuners. These will be replaced with a period vintage set I was able to acquire online as these were seized to the point of no return. Any attempted fix would probably leave them unable to tune properly.
	Even after degunking them they would not turn with pliers.
	Re-gluing the binding in a couple of places. You can see the crack in the lower bout in this picture as well. Also the center purfling strip was coming loose and had shrunken.
	This is what 112 year old Adirondack (red) spruce looks like, as best as I can show it. The grain is so tight it almost blends together. The brazing is also from the northeaster forests before they were depleted building airplanes for WW2.
	The two cracks in the soundboard after about a week of humidification closed up considerably. I had considered filling it with a long thin strip of spruce, but will go with a mixture of spruce dust and glue.
	After touching up some of the dings and scrapes in the finish it is looking pretty good. I do this with fine tip permanent markers, furniture touch up pens and even a super fine brush and artist’s gouache. It’s tedious but it words and does not disturb the original finish much.
	The side lower bout crack is looking pretty good at this stage after re-polishing multiple times.
	Preparing to glue the cracks. A band clamp usually will pull any crack together but this one is stubborn. I have used several luthier’s magnets to cleat this from the inside with 6 inch long half inch wide cleats. This will never open along theses cracks again. I normally use smaller cleats on closed cracks.
	Clamps, clamps, magnets, and more clamps. I use leather to protect the surface and wax paper under the blocks required to keep the soundboard level during gluing.
	This crack is almost closed at this point.
	Forcing the glue into the joint with a suction cup, an old Frank Ford technique. It works as I got squeeze out inside which I clean with a damp towel.
	I work along the crack and will come back later to hit the spots covered by the magnets and clamps.
	Leveling and gluing and cleating the cracks in the soundhole; I used small spruce cleats here- these have grain that runs perpendicular to the crack so it will not be able to expand again. Lool at that Brazilian rosewood in the fretboard- along with the bridge, that is the only Brazilian on this puppy as the back and sides are birch.
	Filling the remaining crack with spruce dust and glue compound. I will shave this after dring and apply color and finish just along the crack itself.
	After filling, before touchup.
	Magnets to hold the cleats while drying. These are extremely powerful rare earth magnets.
	A view of the long spruce cleat.
	Note that the grain runs perpendicular to the soundboard grain.
	Working on the center purfling that a gap appear- apparently because it had had shrunken.
	I used aliphatic resin glue rather then hide glue on this repair.
	Using cherry cauls to keep the surface flat while clamping and gluing.
	Wax paper just in case of squeeze out- this will make for easy cleanup.
	I have an assortment of hardwood cauls for every occasion.
	Filling a gap in the rosette with a sliver of spruce then shaving it off..
	Re-scraping the filled cracks with a razor blade scraper.
	The lower bout back crack closed before buffing and polishing
	The period tuners that replaced the originals. These are twinsies of the originals, probably made by Waverly.
	Touch up and colorizing the fills.
	A bit here a dab and a smudge- this is an ad hoc process and works well.
	Waxing sometimes helps...
	Initial buffing with coarse compound, will work through medium and fine then use Preservation polish to finish it off.
	Simichrome polish takes down the finish a bit...
	Buffing with Preservation (non silicone) polish multiple times...
	Lower bout crack refilled again- this is an incrementalfilling process, a little at a time, rescrape, buff, etc..
	I have a bit more colorizing to do but wanted to show the progress at this stage. I used extra light Elixir strings and it sounds great.
	The action is still way high so the next phase will be a neck reset. I am very pleased with how it turned out cosmetically
	Original ad for the Keystone in the 1908-9 edition of the Montgomery Ward catalog. Several companies were building guitars for the company, mostly Lyon & Healy at this time. Ths model was gone from the catalog by the 1912 edition, replaced by a solid mahogany version based on the same design.