Son was practising his guitar after school today, ready for his G. 8 exam in 3 days' time, when he noticed a crack in the top from the bridge right down to the bottom of the top plate. The crack goes through the full thickness of the top plate.

The crack runs parallel to a very old crack, which must have occurred when it was being made - when my brother in law bought the guitar new from the luthier 30 or more years ago, it already had that mended crack in it. It doesn't sound bad, but it's not well made. (The frets are very slightly crooked too...the luthier went out of business many years ago, surprise, surprise).

Viohazard has e-mailed his teacher, but it's already late at night here, and his teacher is not great with high-tech stuff like phones!

Question: Despite the urgency of exam practice, should Viohazard loosen the strings to take the tension off the bridge?

Question: Is it realistic to keep on playing the instrument (under tension of course - he uses normal tension D'Addario EXP strings) and take the exam on a cracked guitar - is the crack likely to affect the sound any worse than it does at present in the course of 3 days?

Question: Is it realistic to borrow an instrument and have half a day to a day and a half at most playing it before taking a G. 8 exam? (In particular, his own instrument has those very slightly misaligned frets - can't help wondering how hard it would be to get used to a new instrument).

Questoin: At G. 8 is a problem like a cracked guitar top a reason to postpone the exam? Really can't afford to pay over GBP160 twice in one year...

P.S. If there is no alternative to continuing to use the damaged instrument for several hours a day, would it help to switch the strings to light tension? (He normally uses D'Addario composites normal tension - light tension strings can be hard to find.)

I assume the old crack was fairly big, because it has been spliced, not just glued together.

P. P.S. Exam canceled...guitar top is swelling up a bit round the crack as the rain continues to pour down, so there is obviously still unreleased pressure, and teacher said he thought it best not to risk playing it. Now to figure out where to get it repaired.

Sorry I didn't get round to this before. Sorry to hear that the exam had to be cancelled.

Perhaps the best place to ask this question would have been at www.delcamp.net on the Luthiers side of the forum. They have some great guys there.

Looks like you're taking it off to the luthier anyway. All the best with it.

Cheers,

Matt.

Thanks! I've just found that delcamp have a Japanese forum too, where Viohazard could ask questions for himself, without having to worry about pesky English spelling.