Vintage cardboard guitar cases restoration

[snakehips]

Hi there !

I posted last year asking for advice & thoughts on restoring original cardboard cases that came with two Kay-built solid-body electric guitars I have.
They are similar guitars, from the mid 1950's, with guitar cases of very similar style & construction - and with cool alligator-skin style coverings.

Both cases were falling to bits - mainly where the front, back & sides are stitched together with a strip of faux leather card(board).
The faux-leather card strip was crumbling all over the place despite the stitching being intact.
The worst problem on both cases was the narrow, cardboard side lip of the guitar case lid, on both guitar cases, as they were broken into multiple shorter sections.

Should I bin these cases, or keep using them until they completely fall to bits, or try to sympathetically restore them back to reasonable function & give them an extended life ?

I had already used the cases for as long as I dare, carrying the guitars in their original cases, BUT transporting to gigs inside large padded gig-bags to minimise further damage. However, the padded gig bags were accumulating more & more "bits" of crumbling cardboard as the cases fell apart more & more.

I decided on the latter option - to try and sympathetically restore them - because the cases had reached the point they would be unsavable if used any longer.

NB. The cases are not for resonator guitars but I do play slide guitar on them - so I hope this thread is OK on this forum ?

Here are photos of both cases, as they were, falling apart, and the guitars in them. It's maybe less obvious on the darker brown case photos :

White, Kay-built, 1954 Silverton 1361, with light brown faux-alligator finish cardboard case, light-brown edging with colour matched stitching

Two-tone green/cream, circa 1956 Kay K-136, with darker brown faux-alligator finish cardboard case, dark-brown edging with red stitching

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[snakehips]

As it turns out, the front, back and sides of the case were mostly in good condition.
Only the sides of the case lid, ie. the side lip of the case lid, were broken into multiple sections - for both cases.
Luckily I had all the sections. I had to stick those broken sections back together if I was ever going to restore these cases.
I could have glued a strong strip of something onto the inside side of the case lid sides - but then it would be too visible.
I really wanted to find a fairly "invisible" solution.

Starting on the slightly smaller, lighter-brown Silvertone case, I had to take the guitar case apart, cutting through and removed all the stitching on the case lids. I chose a vinyl "leather-effect" fabric to replace the edging.
I bought a “leather stitching kit” which had lots of needles and various colours of waxed thread - that cost about £10.
The faux-leather fabric sheet I bought was 1.5m long by 1m wide (cost me about £10, with plenty left over after restoring both cases) - but I needed about a 2m long strip or more to reach all the way around the case - so I cut a shorter section for the back part of the lid and a longer section for the most of the circumference. The strips were circa 25mm wide. Cut them with a long metal rule and sharp (new) Stanley knife blade, to get as perfect a straight line cut as possible.

The sides of the lid were in 6 broken sections, going around the case.
I was given a piece of thin wood veneer from a local guitar luthier some years back (I'll not waste time explaining that one !) that came in very useful.

The cardboard case is made from a few layers laminated together. Using a Stanley knife blade, I was able to split the cardboard material layers open, to open up a gap in the middle of the cardboard thickness, at the ends of neighbouring broken sections - then glue in sections of the wood veneer across the breaks, clamping everything in place. The beauty was, I cut into the edge of cardboard that is covered by the edging material, so the broken sections are reinforced inside (with the wood veneer) and it's wood veneer addition/insertion would be hidden from view once the edging was stitched into place. Simple ! (well, not totally !).

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[snakehips]

Next, I glued the strip of leather-effect vinyl onto the sides of the case lid lip.
I lightly taped low-tack masking tape onto the lid side, in a straight line, to help guide glueing on the vinyl edging strip in as straight a line as possible (to look as perfect as possible !).

The inside case lining, which was heavily worn suede-effect material had holes worn through it in places - so I thought it would be cool to completely reline the case. While it might be ideal to place a thicker, more protective material inside, it wouldn't be in keeping with the original thin lining material. I realised if I tried to rip out the original internal lining material, I might rip the cardboard apart. So, I decided to glue a new layer of faux-suede material on top of the original material.

Glueing the vinyl edging and glueing a new layer of faux suede onto the inside of the lid caused a new unexpected problems for the next stage - doing all the stitching !!!
The original stitch-holes in the cardboard were inadvertently filled in with the wood-glue (Gorilla glue) I was using.
When it came to do the stitching through the new fabrics, it was very difficult to force a needle & thread through the blocked-up original stitch holes !!!! I had to grip a needle with a a set of pliers, pushing firmly through the glue-filled stitch holes, then grab the sharp end of the needle on the other side & pull it through with the pliers again. I broke a lot of needles forcing them through - and had to buy another batch of needles (circa £4 just to get both cases completed.
Each stitch took at least 30seconds , and there were about 300 stitch holes all around the case lid sides and case lip top. Stitching just the lid took me about a week, done in stages !!!!

The circumference of the guitar case is about 2metres.
I researched different ways to stitch (especially leather stitching, as youtube vidoes showed better examples of different stitching methods).
Turns out, I needed about 6m of thread for each stitching line around the case. You need a needle threaded on each end, and wherever you start, you push the needle through, and pull the thread until half the length has gone through.
I chose the method where you thread one end in & out, moving around the case - which looks like only every second hole has a stitch.
Then, with the other needle, at the other end of the thread, you thread through the same holes in the other direction. Takes forever and plenty times I broke a needle, and sometimes the thread broke where it is threaded through the needle's eye. By the time I got all around the case to where I started, I had about 20cm-30cm length of thread left, on each end.
So, that's 6m of thread for the sides of the lid, another 6m length for the top of the lid, 6m length for the bottom of the case and 6m length for the sides of the bottom ! Bear that in mind if you ever are considering re-stitching a guitar case together again !

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[snakehips]

Putting the lid and lid side-lip together by stitching the faux-leather vinyl strip to the sides, then to the lid top.

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[mitchfit]

snakehips,

to be honest--when reading your upload last year, i thought your chances of ending up with a visually pleasing end product was very slim, at best. somewhat akin to repairing a broken clear drinking glass with a seamless appearing result.

will admit to being wrong about that today.

have you ever considered running for political office?

mitchfit

[snakehips]

The cases are finished. I just need more time to upload more of the stages.
More tonight ! They turned out pretty good - not perfect BUT better than I thought I could do !

[snakehips]

Next stage was to line the insides of case sides and bottom with the faux suede material.
The inside sides of the case had obviously had the original faux suede glued on first, then the alligator skin case covering was applied on the outside of the case, and folder over into the case, on top of the suede lining.

I hoped I could peel away the faux-alligator covering, where it overlaps the suede material - but attempts to do so were risking ripping the material.

So, the cut strips of the faux suede material were glued to the inside sides of the case, with a straight cut edge moved up to the edge of the alligotor material. Managed to make it look fairly good.

Attachments:

[snakehips]

Final post on the build.

During the process, the lid & it's broken sides, and the back & the sides were all worked on separately, by cutting through all the original stitching, removing it all, and the crumbling edging material. I also removed the tiny (shallow height) plectrum compartment to recover it in matching new faux suede material.

The faux-leather vinyl edging strips were first glued to the sides of the case (bottom edge of the case, and the top edge of the sides of the lid). I used "low tack" masking tape lightly stuck on the case sides first, to produce a straight line guide, for gluing the vinyl edging as neatly as I could.
The downside of using this "low tack" masking tape, is that the adhesive tape was still more adhesive than I thought the "low tack" labelling suggested !! So, when removing the masking tape, some of the faux-alligator case covering was ripped off - especially on the darker brown Kay K-136 guitar case.
Aaarrggh ! So, If anyone plans to use masking tape on delicate carboard cases, don't !!!!

Once the edging was glued onto the sides of the case, I also stitched it all in place.
It would have been a nightmare to try & keep the edging in a nice straight line, while doing all the stitching, if I hadn't glued it in place first.
The gluing and stitching of the edging to the case sides, I predicted, would be much easier than stitching the edging to the lid top and case bottom, as I'd be needing to bend the edging 90 degrees over the case edges and many tricky curved areas around the guitar case shape.

Anyway, I tried to stitch carefully, making sure it wasn't loose anywhere - in case it all fell apart.
I think I stitched everything too tightly, because the case lid sides splayed out a little, by the time I finished the lid.

Then I stitched the Silvertone's case bottom to the sides.
Once that was done, I tried the lid back onto the back & sides - and all looked pretty good.

However, when it was time to re-fit the newly recovered plectrum compartment lid, I found it didn't fit - it was far too wide to fit inside the neck portion of the case. How did that happen ???

Then realised I had positioned the sides of the case ONTO to edge of the lid, instead of around the outside of the lid.
I think this is why the sides of the lid splayed out !
I also wrongly stitched the sides of the case to the bottom of the case, in the same way !!

I had the choice of either undoing weeks of stitching, and start again (eh, no thanks !), or cut off some of the plectrum compartment lid sides a bit - so it was about 6mm-7mm less wide. I did that.
So, I messed up a bit - but to be fair, it doesn't look obvious !

So, I was determined not to mess up the Kay K-136 case when getting started on it.

Having done some gluing of vinyl strips and gluing faux suede material to the inside of the Silvertone case, the set, hard glue got stuck in every original stitch hole. This made stitching through blocked holes very difficult - and very much slowed up the stitching process.
So, before I did any more gluing, I cut very thin strips of masking tape and laid them over the stitch holes, to stop glue getting in the stitch holes. That helped a LOT when working on the Kay guitar case. Phew !
I did still need to use pliers to push the needle through the vinyl edge, the cardboard and the suede inner lining, but it was a good but easier - and thus faster.

The Kay case was originally built the same way as the Silvertone, so rebuilding the Kay case was the same process as rebuilding the Silvertone case - and with the same materials.
This time I was better & faster at doing it - or so I thought !!!


This time, I made sure I stitched the sides of the case around the outside of the lid and around the outside of the bottom of the case.
But as I was stitching around the case, the lid & bottom seemed too big for the sides to stitch around it - and I couldn't get it all to fit back together !!!! Aarrgghh !!
I had to cut out quite a bit of the stitching I had done, and re-do, not stitching as tightly as before.
Then it just about worked !

Reattaching the case lids to the case was tricky. The Silvertone case hinges had prongs that push through holes in the case, then you bend the prongs 90 degree outwards (inside the case - that worked OK.
The larger, dark brown Kay case hinges were held in place with rivets - but "split-post" type rivets. I had to cut up the original rivets to get the case lid off, as I'd never mange to rebuild the case otherwise. Tracking down replacement split-post rivets was not easy but one or two sellers on ebay had some.
I might re-do the rivets with slightly smaller/better sized ones - as the ones I used are a bit loose.



Anyway, the finished guitar cases :

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[snakehips]

Some close ups of the work :

[davey]

I have some rivets if you need any. "Bifurcated" is the name.

[snakehips]

Thanks - but I’d need to see what size your ones are first.
Most of the ones I saw - the solid shaft part didn’t look ling enough, before they split/bifurcate. So the ones I went for had longer shafts. The shafts are just a little too long. I was aiming for the spilt part, when spreading put 90 degrees each, away from each other, not to pull or potentially rip the cardboard hole they were going through, if the solid shaft part was too short.

Is there a device/tool for bending out the bifurcated parts ?
I found it quite ergonomically difficult to do, whilst trying to hold the main part of the case AND the lid lined up perfectly.
(I used a screw-driver first, to start the two ends splaying apart, then bashing it with a hammer and flat piece of metal !)