There is Old Gura and then there is Old Gura. Got commissioned to get a nice old Gennaro Fabricatore guitar from 1839 in playable condition. A very special guitar and a challenge. This is what it looked like when it came in, in two pieces and with major problems. The neck had been broken loose together with the neck block, parts of the side were missing. The bottom was cracked in two halves and almost loose. A wooden screw remained.

I am almost never impressed by old guitars, but I was impressed by this one. The whole neck is covered with ebony veneer! The fretboard was not a fretboard, just more of the same veneer. Dimensions of lid, bottom and side were optimal. The measuring clock was exactly 64 cm and all the straps were in the right place (checked that Italy officially switched to the meter system in 1855, but in 1812 Naples conquered Italy and then the meter system was introduced for a few years). The notch for the stable leg had a slope backwards, which meant that the intonation of the finished guitar was very good. The whole guitar is very light, 920 grams with everything on, including tuning screws.

Had to make a new wider neck block and fold in maple and ebony pieces where it was missing. There were some wormholes in the lid and some solid maple patches had been glued under the lid in a previous repair to strengthen the lid. They were removed. Glued a stable plate in spruce to give the lid strength (there was no stable plate before). The lid got new ribs in the same pattern as the old ones, the bottom had to keep the originals. The stable was re-glued. Both the bottom and lid had an extra thin kerfling glued on top of the thin original kerfling strip to make the guitar stick together. Before, the glue joint between side and lid / bottom was only 2 mm… now it became 3,5 mm. A new binding in ebony was milled in around the edge of the bottom, got help from Per Marklund who has a good cutter for bindings. Bar frets in the fretboard were worn and replaced with an old mandolin band in brass with the right dimensions for a romantic guitar. The tongs on those straps were completely smooth, so it became almost T-shaped bar frets. Björn Sohlin helped me with the wood screws and the fitting of them, it is violin technique that I have no major experience of. Skin glue and spirit varnish on the lid which was dirty and dried out. Made a little grand on the decorations and a piece of ebony that fell off the head as well.

The neck was attached to the neck block with a continuous square and wedge-shaped nail. It was firmly rusted and it had to be cut to loose the neck block. In the new attachment I inserted a screw through the new neck block from the inside that had to replace the old nail.

The stable leg was replaced by a higher leg to increase the string height to 3,9 mm on thick E. The intonation was really good. But I'm glad I do not have to tune with wood screws, I got sweaty every time the guitar was tuned! It is important to have patience and hard pinches… This is how it turned out.

Sounds very good. The straight ebony-clad cypress neck sagged only 0,2 mm at 12 when the strings were tuned. Unbeatable feeling for the left hand with ebony veneer, silky smooth and smooth. Must be the optimal surface on a guitar neck! The mass-produced European parlor guitars from the turn of the century 1900 imitate the ebony-clad neck with black color…