Herwiga 1930s

Another GammelGura ready. "Old betta" that had "Betty" engraved in the original red paint. The guitar had a fancy label with the manufacturer's name, "Herwiga".

The entire guitar has now been repainted and the cover got a natural color instead of the covering red original color. Under the paint, the tree had a little "bear claw". The only way to succeed with a covering color on spruce with spirit varnish is to get down to clean wood and stain the spruce heavily. Didn't want to thin the cover more than necessary (was only 2.8 mm thick) and tried not to stain before and paint with colored spirit varnish, but the result was so ugly, so ugly. Tossed away the attempt and realized that it looked very good naturally and so it had to be!

The guitar is larger than usual, total length 97 cm and the lid is 28 - 21,5 - 36 cm wide (upper part, waist, lower part). Does not fit in a Gator 3/4 case, but fits well in a case for a classical guitar. The side is quite narrow (7,2 - 8 - 7,5 cm), but the bottom is nicely curved. Upper saddle 45 mm and menstrual 63 cm. The neck has a U shape, quite flat in the middle. A little unusual but you get used to it quickly.

The fingerboard in fine rosewood was reused. It was only 3,5mm thin, so the whole board was sandwiched together with a nice piece of rosewood. Also had to do a wedge on the fretboard on the lid to get the fretboard straight. The bitten fingerboard on the lid consists of three layers of rosewood! They had been creative with the band placement. In order to make it intonate "right" with a straight oversaddle, you had to compensate with the placement of the straps instead... not a good solution to the problem. All bands below 12th had been moved 1-3mm from the correct position closer to the stanchion and the top bands were moved closer to the saddle. Filled up the slots and re-banded with the bands in the correct mathematical places.

The grip board markings were made with a larger mother-of-pearl mat with a smaller abalone mat bored in the middle.

Sides and bottom are in solid, beautiful walnut. The stable is nicely made in ebony. The neck in mahogany with a slightly tricky "volute" under the head.

The guitar had zero band, but it became a regular oversaddle in the legs as I lost a little more than usual of the neck length when I worked with the attachment that was arguing with me. Safely removed 3-4 mm at the bottom of the neck foot to straighten the neck, in the process the whole neck became 2 mm shorter. Like sawing legs on a table and trying to make the table stand stable…

Made an intonation of stable legs and upper saddle according to all the rules of art. Now all the troubadour chords play clean! 🙂 Sounds very good, the larger size and the walnut gives a little more bass than usual.

This and the "blues guy" from 1934 are sent to CJ Acoustic Music in Östervåla on Monday the 22nd and will be available for testing on Thursday next week. Small pictures.

  

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