Froggy Bottom F-12 Restoration

	Ouch! That top is trashed but the rest of the guitar body survived with only two broken back braces and two long back cracks.
	You can see a spot of mud on the bridge from the boot that did the damage. I was hoping that the CSI team would show up to investigate, but alas, they never arrived.
	I sawed through the edge of the top just inside the line of the kerfing. You can see the two middle back braces need to be replaced. The back also had two long cracks just to the left of the center seam reinforcement strip. Once I had removed the top I began removing the pearl from the edge of the guitar. I soaked the salvaged pearl in acetone to remove all the glue and wood fibers.
	Using super glue and masking tape I reassembled the pieces of the top into a model for my replacement top. I measured all the braces and wrote their dimension on the top. Next, I began to split and plane some stiff engleman spruce to brace the new top. Once I had all the braces planed down I began gluing them to the new top.
	Here, I am gluing the X-brace and the rosewood bridge plate to the new top using my go-bar deck.
	For round two at the go-bar deck I glued the remaining tone bars and wing braces to the new top. At the same time I glued the two replacement back braces into the body of the guitar.
	Here is the guitar body ready for the new top to be fitted. Notice the three slightly wider center seam reinforcement strips I used to reinforce the back cracks.
	After a few hours of carving and sanding here is the new top ready to be glued to the body.
	Gluing the new top onto the body. You can never have too many clamps!
	Gluing on the bindings.
	The new top with all the bindings and pearl installed. Now its time to spray some lacquer. Inlaying the pearl border around the guitar top took 8 hours.
	Once the finish is dry and polished up, on goes the neck.
	Thre she is, all done and ready to be played again!
	And the back.

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