Have had an August Carlstedt guitar before for repair and wrote about this. This time it was a larger model that would also be made a complete one Gammel Gura on. The condition was good except for the lid which had many cracks. Good craftsmanship throughout, the fitting of mother of pearl in the fretboard was not the best I have seen. The customer had bought it at a flea market for about SEK 300…

It could be this guitar hanging on the second row to the right in the background of this picture on August in his shop 🙂

Mahogany in the bottom, side and neck, spruce cap and ebony in grip board and stables. A cover plate on the head in rosewood. Celluloid moldings on both the lid, the bottom and around the sound hole. Fine wooden decor moldings around the lid, bow and the center joint of the bottom.

In order to install an intoned saddle leg, a wider replica of the pyramidal ebony saddle must be made. The original had a "stable leg" in the form of a long fretboard strap. The tuning screws were in good enough condition to be kept, also easy to replace if desired as they had the American measurements of the distance between the posts which is the modern standard.

I had intended to reuse the fingerboard but it turned out that it was strapped in too long a mensur in relation to the stable's location, moreover, the straps were not in the right place. The board was completely flat which is not the most comfortable when playing. It had to be a replica in ebony with a slight 20 ″ radius. All inlays were moved from the old to the new board. The original insert in position 3 was missing and was a very frugal variant. Made life easier and moved the bottom rhombus up to that location and replaced the rhombus in the 17th position with a regular round pearl mortar on the new board.

Since it is a relatively large guitar and the lid was fragile and thin (about 2.7 mm thick), I put in a strong X-ribbed instead of the light V-shaped ladder bracing with a stable plate in the form of a spruce stick that was original. Here are the dimensions of the guitar:

• Total length: 100 cm
• Lid: 26 - 21,5 - 37 cm
• Side: 10 - 11 - 11 cm
• Neck: Soft V shape
• Upper saddle: 47 mm
• 12th band: 56 mm
• Mens: 67,5 cm
• Varnish: Alcohol
• Weight: 1428 grams

It is a lightweight built guitar that does not weigh much for its size. The wide saw gives the body large volume. The most special is the extremely long mens watch! Usually it is 60-63 cm mens watch on small parlor guitars. Martin's fully grown guitars have about 64,5 cm and nylon stringed guitars typically have a mens watch of about 65 cm. This one has 67,5 cm and is well on its way to becoming a baritone guitar that has about 73 cm mens watch.

The long menstrual cycle was one of the reasons why I chose X-ribbed, long menstrual cycle increases the tension and load from the strings. First tried regular 0.10 strings but I thought it felt a bit pale, went up a step to 0.11 which sounded good but felt very tense. Then tested Newtone Heritage 0.12 which feels good with its lower tension and which can accompany the guitar. The carbon fiber rod in the neck and X-ribbing make the guitar and lid strong enough. The long menstrual cycle makes it a little sparse between the straps closest to the upper saddle, but no worse than getting used to it.

The wide and thin mahogany lattice was completely crack free, but I chose to reinforce it with a few knitting needles across the inside. Otherwise, mahogany can crack like a zipper if the side gets banged, the reinforcements inside can prevent the crack from spreading.

The bottom had five regular ribs, I chose to make the 4th into a flat rib. It gives a more resonant bottom and a larger glue surface. The celluloid strip around the bottom was in poor condition where a piece was taken and replaced with a new celluloid strip. Also glued a crack near the center strip.

The intonation of the upper saddle turned out to be odd. Especially the A string needed extremely much compensation at both ends. Tested with three different A strings at the measurement but was still nervous before I could tell that it actually sounded right when I was done! The long menstrual clock and the light and resonant body may be the cause. Had to make the stable leg 5 mm thick to reach all intonation points as well.

It turned out that the guitar is a responsive sound box with good volume. At first thought that the sustain was shorter than expected, but it was mostly because the size of the guitar meant that the right arm rested on the lid. say more than on a stiffer lid with more mass. Can sometimes get some vibes of banjo on the unspun strings. But the sustain that exists is enough and will be over, it sounds good but also a bit different from what I am used to. The long men's watch, the size and the ribbing shape the sound in a different way.