Martin Custom with Severe Top Crack

This Martin Custom came into my shop in real rough shape.

Someone stepped right on top of the case. Causing it to split nearly the entire body length.. There was also another crack and a couple loose braces.

First step was planning out what kind of clamps and cauls I would need. Over the years, I've collected various clamps and made cauls. It will require my longest clamps and take a few stages to glue up this large of a crack.

Here's a pic of the repair of the smaller crack.. It ran from about 2" from the bottom of the bridge, to the tail end.

On to the big crack... This crack was very long and took a few gluing sessions to finish.

2nd Stage, about half way up the crack.. I didn't get photos of the last portion of this repair, but it took one more session to get it all glued up.. I also had to glue a loose brace while I was in there.

This photo shows me using some rare earth magnets to glue in some cleats to the underside of each crack..

Here's a pic of the inside of the guitar while gluing up some patches of spruce. What you can't see are some very small spruce patches under the magnets. It took about 7 in total to span both cracks. These are added for assurance that this crack will not open again.

After some finish touchup, this guitar is back to life and making music again.