The Silvertone Acoustic, H621 pt. 3 Embellishments

If you read my other posts concerning the Silvertone, you know that I left off with the gluing of the bridge back together. I also wanted to customize the guitar a bit. I do think it sounds as good or better than every other acoustic I own, but it still didn't cost me very much. If it were a vintage Martin or Gibson, or a new Taylor, I wouldn't mess with it. In fact, I wouldn't have tried to do anything to it beyond change the strings.

But with an old Silvertone, why not have some fun?

So I started with my initials on the headstock, using some bright red paint I bought last summer. Next, using some stencils that I bought for rock painting, I stenciled a screaming skull in black.


After that, I turned the guitar around to try a flaming bush type stencil on the back. The stencil book suggested using blues and yellows, along with red, for the flame effect. I did that, but I'm not sure I like the result.

The gluing of the bridge seemed to work okay, so I painted the bridge black. Using the Titebond glue, I both glued and screwed the bridge back on the guitar. I jury-rigged my clamps and some wood to get equal pressure across the bridge of the guitar without squeezing so tight that I break it.

Then, tragedy struck.

With all the guitars I have, I've never had the next thing happen before.

My sleeve caught one of the clamps while the guitar was up on my workbench. It fell, and with the extra weight of the clamps, the neck cracked in a jagged fashion, around the truss rod.

I put all this work into the guitar, which I think sounds better than any other acoustic I own, and then I break the neck.


I wanted to cry.

When I cracked the neck, there was really nothing left to do but try to break it as cleanly as possible, and then attempt to glue it back together. It really hurt to do, but sometimes, as they say, you have to go through the hurt to get past the pain. So like digging out a splinter, I gritted my teeth and snapped the neck off, careful not to lose any of the pieces. 

I still wanted to cry.

I had all the pieces, though, so now it was time to get on the internet and find out what to do next.

I had hoped this would be a three part post, too. Oh well.