Junior and Spool Clamps

I met up with my best friend during the holidays and he showed me a guitar which has a little story to it. About 20 years ago when I first got interested in guitars I was looking for a cheap guitar to start off with. Someone in my church had a parlor sized classic acoustic which I liked but was not willing to sell it. I told him if he did I wanted to buy it from him. About half a year after that I noticed he did sold it to my best friend (who did not know I wanted it too). I was mad about it but I let it go. And now some 20 years later it shows up again when I visited my friend. The guitar it self had been at his brothers house for years and sure had its share of life. It needs a good overhaul before it is playable again. So my friend asked me to repair it for him so his son can beat it up again :-). But to be able to do it I need spool clamps which I do not have yet. But I already wanted to make me some so I spend three evenings putting them together from a wooden dowel, 8 mm threaded metal rods, locking nuts, wing nuts and washers. I also used some radiator foil for the padding. I am not sure if it is going to hold otherwise I have to replace it with some cork or rubber. First I had to saw the dowel to 25 mm blocks and cut the threaded rod to 200 mm lengths. After that I drilled 8 mm holes in the blocks.

After that a locking nut is bolted on the threaded rod, washer on top, then a block and a piece of padding (the foil). Then at the other end of the rod the reversed happens so: padding, block washer and finishes of with a wing nut. The assembled clamp looks like this:

And that process was repeated 23 times to end up with 24 clamps:

This type of clamp is used to glue tops and backs to the sides of a guitar. I need it to do some repairs on Junior. This is the model name of the guitar I am restoring so I keep calling it Junior. So back to the guitar. It came into my hands all bruised and battered. This is how it looks like:

The white spot on the top is glue residue from a paper pickguard. It came loose already so I removed it and I will make a wooden one and glue that on later. The back of the guitar was almost off (only holding at the heel block:)

I decided to remove the back all together to get a better picture of the internals of the guitar to see if that needs any repairs:

At the heel the fret board gives a bit way from the neck. I will take a good picture of that later. There is a crack  in one of the sides which I noticed when I removed the back:

 Also the top is loose for about a length of 100 mm at the lower bout (treble side):

I started of with the crack. I used a small screw driver to force the crack open to be able to get glue into the crack:

With the glue in I clamped it up:

I also put glue in the gap between the top and the sides with the help of the little screw drivers. I then clamped it up with the spool clamps I just made:

The back has no bracing what so ever. I think for the over all stiffness of the guitar it would be a good thing to have some bracing in so I will add three braces to the back before gluing it back onto the guitar. I cut them to length and I will glue them on later and then shape them.