Soundboard replacement for a "Panagi Bros" classical guitar:
This guitar was the personal instrument of Stavros Zoras. It was built by the “Panagi” brothers. Stavros Zoras (1941 - 2011) was a Greek musician, singer and songwriter. He became well known during the '70s, with the songs "You who I know so little", "Maybe", "Its late" and "Thank you". Stavros Zoras’s guitar was brought to us by his daughter for repair work after an accident which made it impossible for the guitar to function as the lid and sides were badly damaged. We proceeded with the complete replacement of the soundboard, using the original parts (saddle, rosette, pick guard), aiming to restore the instrument without losing its character. Below we present a brief photographic history of the repair...
A brief history of the repair
The guitar as we received it.
The soundboard of the guitar has been severely damaged...
We begin by removing the fret board.
In order to remove the fret board, first we need to carefully remove all frets and then clean the fret board very well (this is a hard job!!!).
We can now remove the fret board.
We now remove the saddle with extra care as we will use it again.
We glue the cracked side.
Add patches of wood inside the instrument wherever needed.
Continue with repairing the inside of the guitar.
An inner view of the soundboard
We carefully trace the original soundboards bracing as we will be creating an exact copy of it for the new soundboard.
Creating the new soundboard.
We remove the original rosette with extra care in order to inlay it in the new soundboard.
Preparing to inlay the original rosette.
We now place the rosette and make the sound hole.
The rosette is successfully in place.
We continue by gluing the soundboard braces in place following the exact footprint of the original soundboard structure.
Now it is time to shape the braces to make them just like the original.
Our new soundboard is now an exact replication of the old soundboard. It is ready to be glued on to the rest of the guitar!
We glue the soundboard to the guitar.
We glue the purflings and bindings…
...the width and color will match the original ones.
A comparison between old and new.
We now glue the fret board into place…
…and prepare the fret board to fit the new frets.
As the restoration of the instrument is coming to an end, we need to proceed with a few minor repairs.
We start to polish the sound board.
It is now ready for the saddle.
We clean and prepare the original saddle and glue it into place.
Also glue the pick guard into place.
The guitar is alive again and ready to play!!!
The damage has been restored and its character has been successfully maintained!
