Onto the back

The clamps are off the strut regluing now and that all feels nice and solid.

Time to move onto the back. There are 3 sections where the back has come away from the side. I'll approach each one in turn, starting with the largest. This one is about 3" long, then the others are roughly 2" and 1".

I used an old thickness gauge to scrape as much of the old glue off and then to flex the joint open a bit to help get glue deep into it. I got as much glue into the joint as possible, using a small modelling paintbrush, before clamping up again and then cleaning off the residue with a damp cloth.

You can see in this photo that there is no binding between the back and sides; just a rounded edge. I assume they did that because they were trying to make it look like a resin backed guitar (?), but it is actually nato back and sides as far as I can find out and is otherwise traditionally constructed using purfling (is that the right word for the blocks between back and sides?) Whilst I think this all makes it look a little cheap, it does help to be able to do my amateur repair without having to reinstate the binding and should be easy to touch in the black colour with a little satin black modelling paint.