Jinder Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 Hi all, The lady I've spent the last year or so touring with intermittently, Lotte Mullan (marvellous singer/songwriter, check out www.myspace.com/lottemullan), owns a Legend series L00, bought (with plenty of encouragement from me!) last year when she wanted to upgrade from a Taylor T5. She has recently moved house, and in her new flat the L00 sits on a stand in the living room...she shares the flat with two other musicians, all of which have been known to pick up the L00 regularly to play, sing and write. A couple of days ago I stopped by for a coffee before we set off for a gig in Norwich, and I picked up the guitar for a strum only to notice that there was a HOLE (!) in the side of the guitar (on the waist part which sits on the right leg of the player whilst sitting) about the size of a five pence piece, or a dime, along with a crack under the lacquer about two inches long from the hole heading in the direction of the endpin. It looks to me like someone had a bunch of keys in their pocket and either put the guitar down too hard on their lap or leant on it heavily whilst playing it. I immediately flagged it up, and poor Lotte was horrified. The sides of the guitar are very, very thin (is this normal? I'm talking maybe 0.4mm at the very most), but I'm guessing that something like this could be patched up without too much ado...am I right? Obviously being on the side of the guitar that faces the player's knee it's not too imperitive to have the most cosmetically flawless repair, but it needs to look reasonable and be strong. How would this affect resale value? This is a question Lotte asked me and I said I'd do some research on the damage, repair, costs and depreciation. Any advice and help would be fantastic :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibson101 Posted May 15, 2009 Share Posted May 15, 2009 That sucks! I have a pretty good ding in my RJ L-1, I was surprised how thin the sides are!! I was drunk when it happened so I'm not even sure how I did it! B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rar Posted May 15, 2009 Share Posted May 15, 2009 The sides of the guitar are very' date=' very thin (is this normal? I'm talking maybe 0.4mm at the very most), but I'm guessing that something like this could be patched up without too much ado...am I right? Obviously being on the side of the guitar that faces the player's knee it's not too imperitive to have the most cosmetically flawless repair, but it needs to look reasonable and be strong. How would this affect resale value? [/quote'] The very, very thin sides are indeed normal, the same as on the original. "Key cracks", and more extreme damage, in that area of such guitars is very common. The good news is that a repair can be nearly invisible, if you get a good enough repair person to do the job: check out the job Alan Perlman did on the old Martin at the bottom of this page, and that a repair this good won't seriously reduce the resale value. The bad news is that it's not easy to find someone as good as Alan to do the repair, and a less-than-great repair job could reduce the value of the guitar by 50%. -- Bob R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinder Posted May 15, 2009 Author Share Posted May 15, 2009 rar, thanks for the advice! It's good to know that all is not lost. It's a guitar I absolutely love, and if it becomes surplus to Lotte's requirements sometime in the future I'd most definitely be first in the queue to cross her palm with silver and give it a new home. I will report back...I'd love KSdaddy's opinion on this, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertjohn Posted May 15, 2009 Share Posted May 15, 2009 Jinder, you might want to have a word with Robbie on 9 June? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyK Posted May 18, 2009 Share Posted May 18, 2009 A hole, like actually missing wood? Yikes! Rule number 1: Don't borrow someone's axe without first asking. Rule number 2: Don't ask. New Rule: Rule Number 3: Don't loan guitars out. If you must, have your guit tar, safely secured in a case and locked, if cohabitating and a 'loaner'. I practice that with my own tools. I feel bad about not being helpful when someone wants to borrow my drill and such. So... I keep a loaner drill (most commmony borrowed tool) and MY drill. The loaner is a Black and Decker, MY drill is the Milwaukee. Frank Ford at Frets.com covers this subject, "Key Damage". It's so common, it has it's own name. Could come from any hard object in your front pants pocket, keys, change, capo.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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