The first finished GammelGura in the ongoing batch was a Levin parlor from 1923. A veined cheap model with a triangular stand in black painted maple and walnut board. Early Levin parlor guitars have smacking slightly V-shaped alder necks, probably made for late strings. Such necks become banana-shaped if you do not reinforce them with a carbon fiber rod with steel strings. Later Parlor guitars like this one have significantly stronger birch necks. If I have to choose, I like the al necks better, they are lighter and better shaped and hold up well with a carbon rod. This particular one also had an extra bulky and round "baseball neck", not very comfortable to hold. The base and lid were both quite thick, close to 4 mm. The positive about it is that the cover had no cracks (except a crack at the edge of the fretboard above the sound hole), the negative that you can never get a good tone with such thick dimensions, it has always sounded stringy 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 job went smoothly. New ribs all around. Stringed with Newtone Heritage 0.12 as usual (equivalent 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 spruce saddle plate, the oversaddle intonation, the segmented saddle bone 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 🙂
