1927 Martin Guitar Restoration, part 4: Repairing Some Challenging Back Cracks

This segment of the restoration focuses on a few of the many back cracks that were found on OOO-18 guitar. Crack repairs almost always need to be cleated on the inside to ensure stability, simply putting glue into a crack without the added reinforcement on the inside can see the crack reopen after a short time. Two of the cracks in this video were right up against the original back center seam reinforcement strip that had been installed at the factory in 1927. It is particularly difficult to cleat cracks in this location because there is very little for the cleat to hold onto on the center seam side of the crack.