I rarely hear how the original sound is in an old guitar. The guitar is almost always unplayable. This Levine from 1934 (90162) had someone glued around his neck. The stable, on the other hand, was unnecessarily high and the sound metallic from the plate in the string holder. The fretboard was uneven and the straps were not in the best condition. It would also get a K&K mic. A bit fixative and not a complete GammelGura.

When I got it home, it turned out that it was of the type that has a crossbar in the middle of the stable. Better sound in these than those who have a maple stick. But assembling a K&K is problematic. Exactly where you want to glue in the sensors, there is a bar. K&K sells a variant that is to be placed under one foot of the stable, but it has not received good reviews. Gluing on the bar or in the lid next to the bar did not seem so good either. Tried me on a solution where two sensors pass the lid in each 2 mm hole under the string holder, the sensors I had intended to clamp under each stable foot. The sound was not as good as I hoped, too much murky sound from the lid and a bit harsh. Tested a bit and came to the conclusion that the base side had its sensor glued under the stable foot against the lid and the sensor on the treble side was glued with the sensor directed upwards in the foot itself. Then you got a more balanced sound with more of the strings and treble. Still not the same sound as the guitar, but as good as it can get. These guitars are hard to mic!

The string holder itself was wall-taped on the inside with a 1 mm thick and tough welding tape all the way from the string holes to the screws behind it. It is a trick that removes almost all metal scratching.

The stall got a frozen stall leg that can be shimmied up if needed in the usual way.

Sanded the fingerboard flat, rebanded, made the stable, glued in the K&K mic and stringed up with Newtone Masterclass 0.11. Varnished it a couple of rounds with spirit varnish as well and filled in the worst damage with brown stain. But no worse than it still has its worn charm. Is lukewarm to how it sounds, but I'm glad to note that my changes of ribs inside make these sound better! 🙂

The blue guitar band was not the nicest I've seen, but fits well in my variant of band holder on K & K mic's less good contact.