One of the most puzzling GammelGura I've done is finished. What I can not understand is the mixture of good shape, materials and thicknesses and the builder's negligence. Everything looks good, but all the details are a bit "off". Feels a bit like folk art!
A small list of oddities. The stable is cool, but nothing is balanced or straight. The string pins are off center almost a cm, one mustache does not look like the other and the back of the stable has a slight bend in the wrong direction. But functional and perfectly OK height and good with space between the string holes and the stable leg. Inside, the ribs weren't as oversized as they usually are, but they were really rough-sawed. You could get knits in your fingers! The carving inside was extremely uneven and the builder had burnt the wood in several places, but still had to crack the carving in a couple of places. Probably the whole guitar was built with wood that was not really dry, I had to fill in the lid with just under 1 cm spruce in two wide knits. The bottom was also cracked but actually fitted to the sides (which was in a substantial buckle maple). The deepest place on the waist of the bottom separated about 2 cm in height. The head is not symmetrical, but the shape is fine. The neck foot was really skewed and centered but matched the gap in the guitar. The body had a slight bend at the neck and bottom block. The most surprising thing was probably that the grip board was like a carving ski, for some reason the grip board was about 3 mm wider at the bottom than it should be! The last thing I have never encountered before.
Well. Grind the grip board straight along the sides and the rest are the most fun details.
Retained the original board in black painted maple and added a jakaranda shim under to make it thicker after leveling on the back. The strips beyond the 12th strip were knocked to the eye of the builder (!), Filled in the grooves and saw new ones in the right place on the whole board. Maple is not a bad timber in a grip board, but as always it is at least twice as much work to keep the original. The finely cut end of the grip board was preserved.
Carbon fiber rod, brass band, new tuning screws and a K&K mic were mounted. It received oversaddle toning and a composite stable leg with leg posts and spruce in between. Spruce sticks were glued into the wide cracks, the bottom could be glued together without more wood. A lot of team lists and team pieces were glued into both the lid and the bottom. The bar behind the stable plate in spruce I made thinner than usual.
The varnish was very tired, especially on the lid. The varnish on the bottom and side must be preserved and I applied a few coats of new varnish that cushioned the worst paint damage (stayed a little white from the porous original paint). The lid was scraped clean and completely repainted. My new method of sanding with polishing oil and wet sandpaper made the surface smooth and fine 🙂
As the posts of the new tuning screws were 1 mm shorter than the original, one of the posts did not reach the middle, one "door" in the head was wider than the other. Had to make a fix with the "grommets" intended for tuning screws for flat heads to win the mm that was missing. No disadvantage as the posts rest against metal, go easier and respond better to the attack from the strings.
Sounds good after three days of vibration. No noticeable wolf tone. The guitar is quite small and thin and the sound was not as basic as expected, but the sound and sustain are beautiful with NH 0.12 strings mounted. Some fine pictures:
