Changing a righty guitar to lefty?

[Glenn Barber]

I have a twenty+ year old Washburn acoustic guitar, model D-10M, serial #92060264D. It is right handed and I am thinking of switching it to lefty. How difficult a task would this be? I know I would need to replace the piece (nut, i think) at neck that holds the strings in place before the tuning keys, as well as the piece at the bottom where the strings get pegged (saddle and bridge combo). Not sure I would mess with removing old or adding a new pickguard.

Thanks,
Glenn

[John Coloccia]

Pretty much, that's it. Change the nut and change the bridge/saddle. You could probably fill the slot with similar wood, and just redo the slot if you really wanted. Without seeing the guitar, you may also need to fill the holes in the bridge plate and re-drill them. If the holes are straight across, you're OK and can reuse them. If they're angle to follow the bridge, or some other pattern, you may need to redrill them to get the proper break angle over the bridge, and then probably you're want to replace the bridge entirely.

I don't know what the neck carve is like. If it's an asymmetrical carve, it may feel funny playing it.

That's pretty much it, though, unless I'm having major brain lockup. I've never had to do it, though.

[Kevin L. Waldron]

There may be more to changing the guitar than simply changing nut and bridge. I suspect the bracing is setup for bass strings on the top and treble on the lower ( tone bars.......) It's also possible that the scallop for the bracing may be different from top of body to lower side of body. It is also possible that the fret board may be slightly different from top to body if it has a compound radius.

What John suggest will probably work, but a left-handed guitar will not be the same as a right handed guitar if built from scratch.

Kevin Waldron