Mark Day's Blog – September 2011 Archive (1)

What to do with an old Applause Ovation 6-string with a godawful aluminum/resin neck and a plywood top? Rebuild it into a lute, or vihuela, of course!

I started by removing the plywood soundboard. Most luthiers that do repair work will tell you they hate Ovations. I can see why. Ovation uses all sorts of epoxies and other "space-age polymers" to glue their guitars together so taking them apart is not pretty. As I wasn't planning on saving the soundboard, I didn't care. I wore a…