A Levin W36 1978

One thing is certain, most of the guitar road passes by the venue. A very nice Levin W36 had a high string height and needed new straps. Have never seen such a modern Levin before, but this one was a nice acquaintance. Light and above all, properly built. Very much Martin over it, maybe not so strange when Martin bought Levin the last few years. The label inside says it most. After all, a Levin and in my opinion maybe the one that sounds the best of all the dreadnought variants, at least by the ones I've tested.

Everything was not perfect. The stable was slightly skewed and unusually enough, the height was exactly the same on the base and treble side, despite the fact that the fingerboard had a 10 ″ radius. Original gallalith stable legs were perfectly straight as well. The neck is soft and that made it difficult to put the neck right. Actually had to redo the neck turnover an extra time when the stable leg became too low the first time. The second time I boiled the two bottom daughters in the fretboard as the skin glue required more heat than the original glue to come loose. The decorations were made of accordion plastic. Replaced with genuine mother of pearl.

One reason I missed the neck turnover was my unfamiliarity with drawbars. When I strung off, the drawbar gave the soft neck a slight back bend that I did not think about. When I aimed with the ruler, the height at the stable leg became indeterminate… Next time I will make sure that the neck is completely straight with the drawbar before I start aiming at the angle! Or maybe tighten it with strings and loose neck in my jig before I glue for double check.

Loosened the straps, ground the fretboard and re-banded with nickel straps. Glued a wedge under the fingerboard on the lid, 1 mm at the bottom, to get a flat fingerboard after straightening the neck. The stable was re-glued so that it was straight. Despite a second neck turnover, I had to lower the height of the stable on the treble side to get low string height and a couple of mm of air between string and stable on the thin E-string. Did not want to do that, but the stable was incorrectly designed. A new stable leg of legs with a correct 10 ″ bend on the upper side was mounted.

The pocket for the neck dovetail was narrow, drilled as on a Martin oblique forward from the 15th band but only reached with one hole. On these, you should remove the dot at 15 and drill straight down to find the pocket. Inside, you should plug a hole through the neck block or alternatively use it to steam the neck.

Got more jobs than I thought, but shame on anyone who gives up. Was good in the end 🙂
 

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