GG114, George Bauer circa 1890

This was a slower one, but now it's done. As the other George Bauer guitar I recently renovated it was in poor condition. The black mass around the mother-of-pearl inlays along the edge of the lid was gone or loose. The lid also spotted some of the decorative moldings. The lid had detached from parts of the side. The bottom was cracked and in two parts when I loosened it. A little rosewood veneer was taken on the head. The neck was slightly bent and needed to be changed as usual, but otherwise it was in really good condition. The customer wanted it as a nylon string which fit well when the lid was thin, which meant I could use ladder bracing as it had in the original.

The original was also there. Unfortunately, it cracked when I pulled up when it was extremely narrow and there was too little wood in front of the stable leg. Made a wider replica on the stall in ebony.

The bottom had to retain the original ribs, four pieces where the bottom two were flat as on a Martin. All the ribs in the lid were replaced with new ones, I changed the pattern to my usual ladder braced variant with the A-frame around the lid and stable plate in spruce.

The customer wants to have composite stable legs and "turbo plugs" which were installed. Made a design change to the stable leg and finished the stable leg with solid bone instead of spruce as I did before. More durable and nicer and as I will do in the future.

No overshadowing on this one as it would be stringed up with late strings whose intonation is not to be trusted 🙂

Got to work extra to get the neck angle just right, nylon strings should have higher string height than I'm used to. Was 2.9 mm at 12th for thick E-string and 2.7mm thin e. The height above the 1st band I make a tenth higher than on a steel string.

A piece of the binding around the bottom was missing so it had to be a new binding in celluloid, got good material from Per Marklund. Milled around after the bottom gluing with my new milling jig for bindings that I bought from Stewmac and glued with "Duco Cement" bought via eBay from the USA. The same glue as the old Karlsson's Klister. Very good for celluloid and also some types of plastic bonds as it melts the surface of the bond.

The pearl pieces in the lid were extremely thin. They had glued on a small piece of wood in the channel to lift up the pearl morbite flush with the top of the lid. Then filled with black "cloth" which consisted of skin glue and ebony dust. I also used lamp black, a black powder of nanoparticles. Per Marklund helped me make new thicker mother-of-pearl pieces in the right size using his CNC, a very practical machine! Made the mistake of gluing the pearl morphs with superglue. It turned out that the black "stick" did not want to stick to the superglue, but I solved it with more superglue where the black wanted to come off. I left the original at the rosette, the new decoration around the edge of the lid was just right with a few cracks and pits and resembled the original which fit well on the guitar!

Stringed on a set of regular medium nylon strings and toned the stool leg as usual. Is above with nylon string guitars and can not say much about how it sounds except that it has a very good sustain, among the longest I have had on an Old Gura. Must be a good sign! If I get feedback from the customer I should add a few lines.


Received an email from the buyer:

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“The guitar came yesterday, now I have had some time to play it.
Nice it is, well done with all the embellishments!

The sound is very good, long and clear. It remains distinct in polyphony - perhaps thanks to your composite stable legs?
The slider is good. The treble string may be a little close to the edge - it goes out sometimes, but maybe it's just to be more careful. You have to get used to a V-shaped neck, but it's nice to play with, along with a fairly wide fretboard.

The stable looks a bit new, of course. upper saddle a little too white. (If you absolutely want to get criticism…)

The guitar is cool, and sounds good, with something definitely exotic-American?
Found a collection of 1800th century American guitar music, which the guitar fits well with 🙂
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The composite stable leg gives much better string separation, the "turbo plugs" make the sound clearer. Very clear on steel string guitars, but it seems to work pretty well on nylon as well 🙂

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