GG145, Levin 1923

The first finished GammelGura'n in the ongoing batch was a Levin parlor from 1923. A vein-painted cheap model with a triangular stable in black-painted maple and walnut board. Early Levin parlor guitars have slender slightly V-shaped necks in elm, probably made for tendon strings. Such necks become banana-shaped if you do not reinforce with a carbon fiber rod with steel strings. Later parlors guitars like this one have significantly stronger necks in birch. If I get to choose, I like the necklines better, they are lighter and better shaped and hold up well with a carbon fiber rod. This one also had an extra clumsy and round "baseball neck", not very comfortable to hold. The bottom and lid were both really thick, close to 4 mm. The positive thing about it is that the lid had no cracks (except for a crack at the edge of the fingerboard above the sound hole), the negative that you can never get a good tone with such thick dimensions, it has always sounded strict and not much else.

Well, not the best guitar in the original but all the errors can be corrected! The neck was thinned down the sides to a weak V or C shape, the lid and the bottom thinned to about 2,8-3 mm. A Levin replica pyramid figure was newly made in Madagascar rosewood, also the grip board was newly made from the same wood. The tired tuning screws were replaced with Golden Age tuning screws from Stewmac.

The neck got a carbon fiber rod under the fretboard as usual, although the neck probably holds for steel strings without. Had some problems with the neck attachment and had to re-glue it again. The positive thing was that I realized that the neck was uncomfortably thick after the first gluing and I took the opportunity to thin it down before the second gluing which worked better. Learns from the mistake and now uses a long iron beam that can rest on the straps on the fingerboard and a 0,5 mm thick blade gauge on the stable to get the right neck angle when gluing. Levin's attachment without dovetail is problematic and you can count on it moving when you string on, even with a plate of hard birch milled and glued to the bottom of the neck pocket. We'll see if I succeed better with the other Levins in the batch. Hope!

The bottom was significantly shrunk and received a centerpiece in rosewood. The segmented stall leg became thinner than usual, only 3,5 mm when the intonation points were almost on a line.

Once the neck was in place, the rest of the work went like on rails. New ribs all around. Stringed on with Newtone Heritage 0.12 as usual (corresponds to the string pull from a regular 0.11 set). It sounds good with high volume, good sustain and the fine string separation and intonation that I am now used to thanks to the stable plate in spruce, the upper saddle intonation, the segmented stable leg and the "turbo plugs". Fits well in the Gator 3/4 case.

Sold to a studio here in Örnsköldsvik. Will know how it works when recording 🙂

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