Rebuilding a Rebuilt Headstock

by Frank Ford

Originally published in American Lutherie #80, 2004 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015

See also,
Meet the Maker: Frank Ford by Jonathon Peterson



Here are some pictures of a recent repair that came across my workbench at Gryphon. This job was a little unusual, and it involved the type of problem solving which I enjoy.

The patient was a 1916 Martin 0-30. The peghead had been converted from slotted to solid with ivory friction pegs (Photos 1 and 2) by someone who simply didn’t have a grasp of Martin’s style. Peg location was idiosyncratic, to say the least, and the peghead had been thinned drastically at the top end. The work was done neatly enough, with new veneer on the front and a nice mahogany veneer on the back, too. My job was to rebuild the peghead yet again, restoring normal thickness and converting it to a solid peghead that would accept regular Grover tuners. While a Martin of this vintage would ordinarily have friction pegs or a slotted headstock, I figured the request was reasonable, since Martin introduced the OM with solid headstock around fourteen years after this guitar was made. So, we (the owner and I) chose the 1930 OM headstock size and shape as a model.