Advice on restoring a '32 National Triolian sought...

[billyclaire]

Hi - I'm Billy from outside Boston MA USA and I just got a 1932 National Triolian in fairly miserable shape. It was originally a walnut finish as evident by the W in the serial number but what I thought might be remnants of original paint in the photos I saw before buying turned out to be what looks like house paint. When I removed the coverplate, there appeared to be a small furry animal in there - so much dirt, dust, and whatever in there. There was a lining of mud inside the metal body - all of it cleaned up pretty well.

The fingerboard and frets are another story. There is scalloped wear in the fingerboard's first five frets and the frets are totally worn. From there up, perfect! There's a center split in the fingerboard and it's lifted from the neck - also all of the binding is gone (and from the house paint on the neck and covering where the binding used to be), looks to have been gone for a long time. Tuners are shot and/or missing, decal is worn out, no nut, etc.

So, the advice I'm seeking is, how far do I go with it? Obviously, cleaning was my first step. I'm going to remove the house paint from the body, already did so on the neck. I have new tuners arriving soon and will get a nut blank. I'm going to temporarily string it just to see if it looks like it needs a neck reset, too. I think I should replace the fingerboard with a new one, too.

But as far as the body is concerned, what do people think? Remove all traces of rust and paint? Leave some for "authenticity?" Bead-blast and paint? Gold leaf it? (I have a couple of guitars that I've gold-leafed and it does look pretty awesome....

And the neck - I removed the paint from the back but should I totally sand the whole thing down? Leave the headstock the way it is? Anyone know if I can get a replacement decal anywhere?

Hopefully, this link to my facebook gallery will work so you can see the progress so far:
www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152381159570351.1073741891.658280350&type=1&l=ccca2f9d03

So thanks in advance for any help - it looks to be my summer project!

[billyclaire]

Oh... forgot to mention - scratched into the back of the headstock are the names Nancy Dunn and Abe Dunn - pretty primitive writing. The seller told me that he found it in the basement of a rental property he owns covered in mud after evicting a tenant....

If I refinish the neck I have to preserve the names!

[paulnb57]

If it was mine, (I wish!) I would do the absolute minimum to get it playable, the wear and patina tell tales of years of use and abuse, fantastic patina under the house paint, utterly fabulous,

Paul

[billyclaire]

Thanks Paul. I'm kinda leaning towards that, too. The fingerboard, though, is scary....

[lexluthier]

Hi Billy

Wow, cool! Leaving as much as possible, as original as possible is good advice, including the fingerboard. The fingernail scalloping is groovy(pun intended) and all distress is a badge of honour. The folks here on this forum will give you good advice from their experience with this type of guitar that I don't have, however I will just say this. I use to work in museum conservation and regularly had to deal something we called 'Dust concrete'. Dust gathers and if undisturbed and gets exposed to even atmospheric moisture at some point, it will harden into 'dust concrete'. Not a problem to remove on something as substantial as steel and aluminium, even wood and wont have caused much harm. You did however describe it as 'mud', if the guitar has become soaked at some point, say in a basement flood, the wooden elements need checking for distortion before you do anything else. I'm suspecting from your photo's its the former but its worth establishing before you decide on your course of action. Best of luck mate, look forward to seeing your progress if you share it here further.

[thebluesbear( al)]

Hi

whatever else you do, please keep us updated....i agree that keep everything as original as possible and the minimal changes

good luck and well done on such a great find

al

[Michael Messer]

Hi Billy,

That is a great find. I agree with the other comments that you should restore it very carefully and keep as much of the original guitar as possible.

Be very careful when seeking advice away from this forum, from the so called experts on this subject, because there is a current trend by some of these 'experts' to replace parts that don't need replacing. For example, if it requires a neck reset, be very careful not to set it at an angle which is too steep for the cone (which has sunk slightly over the decades) and then have to replace the cone with a new one. Decals are around, but I would not replace it with a repro unless you really feel you have to. The body could be cleaned up and refinished, but I tend to agree with the other comments that it should be left alone. This is not because I think rusty old Nationals look like they have character and Mojo, it is because there are very few people in the world who could refinish that guitar without making it look awful!

When you do string it up to test the neck angle etc.... BE CAREFUL ....that cone has not has strings on it for decades, so I would tune it a tone or two lower than it should be, and over a few hours gradually bring it up to pitch.

Good luck with it,

Shine On
Michael

[billyclaire]

Thank you all for the advice! I'll keep you all up-to-date as I make progress. Michael - would you replace the fingerboard? or maybe a portion of the fingerboard? I'm also not sure what fretwire I should use on it either....

And if you look at my avatar photo you can see what I mean by gold-leafing - that's my Telecaster that I gold-leafed.

[Michael Messer]

Hi Billy,

Looking in more detail at your photos; the cone does have some damage and may well collapse. You could try reshaping the edge, but it has been weakened. I would try it as it is and go from there. Be very careful tuning the strings up to pitch.

I would try and hold on to that fretboard - I reckon it is repairable.

Your gold-leafing is beautiful and might well make yours the only one of its kind!

Shine On
Michael

[Matt]

Might this be a candidate for one of Mike Lewis' occasional Fine Resophonic replacement cones?

[billyclaire]

Since I'm still in the planning/ thinking stages I'm weighing all possibilities. I saw a luthier in NYC who made a maple board replacement fingerboard for a Duolian. I may contact him and see if he could duplicate my fingerboard if I sent it to him... that way I could keep the original but have an exact replacement without divots ;-)

I have a love/hate relationship with gold leaf. I gold leafed a custom bass I made and swore I'd never do it again. Three years went by and I forgot most of the horror and decided to do it to my Tele. Now about five years has gone by and I've totally forgotten what a horror show it is to work with gold leaf. But I think it would be a very cool look for a Triolian and cover up a multitude of ills. PLUS it would protect the metal underneath once cleaned. Totally thinking out loud right now....

I better go look up the current price of gold leaf.

Here's the bass - it's a Fender Musicmaster Bass neck and bridge on a Jazzmaster guitar body. Single Duncan Vintage Jazz Bass pickup located on the body by Jim Mouradian. It's short scale but sounds like a full scale bass! It's funny but I created this bass and it was all over some forums - now Fender makes a bass very similar to it! ha ha ha!

[zak71]

May 4, 2014 21:04:44 GMT billyclaire said:

I'm going to temporarily string it just to see if it looks like it needs a neck reset, too.

 

You might want to straighten the hand strap on the coverplate before you do that....or it'll be a very short-lived experiment.
I'd be astounded if it didn't need a neck reset - they virtually all do, if they haven't had one already.




As for the fretboard...if the divots really bother you, why not simply fill them?  

Much easier (not to mention cost-efficient) than removing the fretboard and having a duplicate made.

www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier/Technique/Frets/FBoardDivot/fboardivot.html

If it were mine, I'd remove whatever is left of the non-original paint and leave it be.
My first Triolian was stripped of its paint, I think the "bare" look would look infinitely better than that gold stuff you put on your Fenders.
The surface rust will keep coming back (unless you steel wool it out every few weeks) but it is surface rust, it poses no real threat to the guitar's structural integrity.
Just expect it to keep coming back in all the spots where your skin and sweat make contact with the guitar.
Ever seen that Duolian that Kent Duchaine plays? The whole thing is rust!



If you want to spend money on it, National Reso-Phonic will refinish it in a facsimile of the original "W" walnut-burst, but the new finishes look somewhat cartoonish to me.
Then there's this guy, who is a member here:
www.bfanaticguitarworks.com/
If money was no object, I'd toss originality to the wind and commission a "B series" from him.
www.bfanaticguitarworks.com/?page_id=576
Or this... scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1.0-9/1017153_568883013208267_760004290_n.jpg

[lexluthier]

Hi Billy and all

Museums and antiquities collections have always had the problem of handling and stabilizing objects that oxidize and corrode. This problem is at its worst with collections of arms and armour which tend to be made of raw iron or steel which, even with a high polish, will show a finger print in a short amount of time after being touched or will just develop a general layer of oxidisation even when stored in normal atmospheric conditions. The excepted solution to this problem in the conservation world for quite a few decades now has been the use of Renaissance Micro-Crystalline Wax, effective in protecting many surfaces and finishes but especially good on raw steel. If its good enough for protecting 15th century suits of armour in the Royal collection, it may be of some use to vintage resonator owners. Google it, check it out!

[billyclaire]

Actually, the Worcester Art Museum near me recently acquired the Higgins Armory Collection - I have contacts there so they might be a good resource for the most current information about it. I'll look into that wax in the meantime... thanks.

I just checked the current price of gold leaf. 22 ct composition leaf is $69.99 for a book of 25 leaves. Each leaf is 3-3/8" × 3-3/8" I'd probably need 5 or 6 books to cover it. Yikes. How much is a can of wax?

[davey]

Hi Billy. Wire wool and wax is my preference. Buy the finest you can get. 0000 grade is so fine it polishes to a nice satin. Anything much coarser can leave scratches.

Repair the fretboard, fill the cracks, ignore the scoops. Only replace the frets which can't be saved. I don't know exactly what the original frets were but somebody will and you'll find an exact replacement easily enough. Keep the old logo, rub down the house paint, make it all feel nice to the touch.

Old nationals didn't have super low action, don't try and get it like a Martin. You may have to sort out the neck angle when you've investigated the cone, but being in the USA there are folks you could send it to for the final setup.

I'm about to embark on a similar job so keep in touch. Cheers. Davey