A friend of mine had an acoustic that had sentimental value to him that had been relegated to a wall hanger for several years.  He asked if I could make it playable again and I decided to give it a try as I'm better with electric but if he was game I was as well.  When he handed it to me the action was at least 3/4 of an inch high and was most definitely not playable.  The bridge and top of the guitar had warped upwards of 1/2 inch.  Oh Boy what have I gotten myself into. 

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I started by removing the bridge and determining the neck was still straight, all the repair would be to the soundboard and bridge.  So started a multi step process to bring the guitar back to life.

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With the bridge off I began a Steam, Weight, and wait process that lasted about a month until the top had slowly returned close to normal.  Using weight at this point no longer was enough so I made a special clamp for the guitar out of 1x3 and rope.  A Spanish windlass that was wide enough to span the guitar body and allowed me with the addition of shims to add pressure exactly where I needed it to bring the bridge plate back to level.  The trusty Iron and wet towel got a lot of use on this repair as did my patience.  In the end I needed to glue in a thin piece of Maple under the top below the bridge to spread out the tension over a larger area.  Once the glue set I redrilled holes for the strings, strung it up and gave it a try.  Everything bu the Fishman pickup worked fine.  Always up for a challenge I pulled the electronics out and scraped the worst corrosion I've seen in a long time out of the battery compartment and installed a new battery.  Success pickup and electronics worked as they should and what was once wall art could be played again.