A new Gammel Gura will be hung at CJ Acoustic Music in Östervåla. It is a Levin from 1909 which is of a slightly finer kind with a fixed stall and decorative molding around the lid, but which a previous owner had carved out the lid for a sound hole flick on. This is what it looked like.
The neck in poplar, fretboard in walnut, stall bottom and side in birch and the lid in alpine spruce. No big problems except for the sound hole and some real pits on the back of the neck of a medieval capo. The sound hole I always suspect is too small on a regular Levin parlor for the best sound, so instead of trying to fill in the sawn-off pieces at the sound hole, I took the opportunity to make the hole bigger. Any repairs could not have been made invisible in any case. Also replaced the fingerboard and stall with replicas in Madagascar rosewood in addition to the usual details found in all GammelGura; carbon fiber rod in neck, brass straps, new ribs, oversaddle tinting / plugs and new tuning screws. The sound hole was about 10 cm in diameter and makes the guitar look like a Gibson parlor, looks harmonious I think. The fingerboard, which is 46 mm wide at the upper saddle, had a 16 ″ radius. It also got a K&K mic mounted.
Magnification of the sound hole is otherwise a popular modification of e.g. basic and moody Martin guitars. Larger sound holes reduce the bass in the bass and give a more open tone, would like to test it on a Levin parlor. A broken saw blade and a little patience were what was required, listing the hole with a rosewood strip.
The pits in the throat were filled with tough superglue that allowed to dry overnight.
One reason why I finished working on this before I finished the ongoing batch is that I am currently experimenting with different types of wood in my "turbo plugs". Previously, I have had spruce in all the plugs, but have found that there was a lack of power and volume on the thickest spun strings. With a harder type of wood than spruce in the plug, you can increase the volume, the hardness of the attack and the treble. Very nice to be able to fine-tune the sound, but the options are many!
To increase the volume, attack and treble on the bass strings, I tested having a birch plug on the E string on the Levin from 1916 I sold at the Uppsala Guitar Festival. From being tamer than the A string, the E string instead became volume stronger than the A string with a really lovely solid piano sound.
On my nice Levin I went all the way with birch plug on E and A, pine plug on D and G (pine is a little harder than spruce) and spruce only on the unspun strings b and e. Wanted to get a smooth transition between birch and spruce. With new strings, it became a little too much for my ears. The guitar became extremely clear and loud but also a bit aggressive in sound. Fortunately, it calmed down after a few days when the strings lost their playful new sound. Also think the guitar itself has calmed down. Will probably not change it, but I wanted to try birch on the E string and pine on the A string and spruce on the others on Levinen from 1909 before I mounted plugs on the guitars in the batch. The first picture of plugs is from a guitar in the batch with the same type of wood in the plugs (birch on the far right), the second is Levinen from 1909 with test-fitted strings and K&K mic.
The difference is not huge, but I heard a marked difference between spruce and birch plug on the E string of the first guitar where I unloaded the stable and drilled off the original spruce plug. Right on the thick E string, the improvement is greatest with a harder plug. Feel satisfied with the less offensive setup on this one and will use it as standard on the guitars in the batch.
Another small detail is that I rounded the edge of the grip board more than before. More like the original. Turned out well!
Think this Levinen with various hard plugs and enlarged sound holes sounds good. It really became a less bumbling bass and a really nice, firm and even tone that is softer in tone than my fine rosewood Levin with more hard plugs. The latter, however, sounds better, rosewood is a difficult tone! 😉 Suspect that this one will find its buyer fairly quickly at CJ, hang on the lock if you want to try it out!
