This is a special guitar. Not so much for what it is but its history. The first email from the customer stated: "I called today about my grandmother's old guitar. She only had it and a small suitcase with her in 1939 in January when, aged 21, she took the train and left Vienna to escape Nazism". One can only imagine how important the guitar was to her grandmother.

The guitar itself was very simply made even though it has the name of the builder inside. It's rare to tell who made an old European parlor guitar, but labels became more common in the 1930s. This one was made maybe around 1935. Looked online and found some facts about the builder: “Franz Nowy; 11.5.1875 Vienna, † 11.12.1967 Vienna. He learned and worked with his father in 1887. In 1902-53 he had his own business. From 1912 he was also a subject teacher and in 1929/30 an expert on string instruments".

In addition to fleeing Germany, the guitar had lived a hard life. A not too delicate renovation was done 10 years ago, the biggest mistake was that the entire guitar had been painted with modern varnish. The old paint had also been sanded through here and there. There were some wooden screws in the bridge. The tuning screws were not original but perhaps from the 1940s, the posts had been cut down in length.

The top had a big crack next to the fingerboard and a few small cracks below the bridge. The side had a crack near the end block. When I took it apart, I saw that the neck joint was of the Levin type, a fake dovetail with straight edges. Both top and bottom was a bit too thick. The three-part maple neck was relatively straight and in good condition. The purflings were simple and the fretboard had three round pearl dots. The only decoration out of the ordinary was a small mother-of-pearl inlay on top of the head. This guitar it was made quickly and without too much love, the kerfing inside was uneven and raw, you could almost get splinters in your fingers!

After a discussion with the customer, we came to the conclusion that the bridge and fretboard should be replaced, the fretboard was made of light rosewood but was flat and the frets were not in the right place for the guitars open string length. The new one got a 16 ″ radius. The bridge in black-painted maple was in too poor a condition to be reused. The originals were included when the guitar was delivered. The tuning screws were replaced with new ones with modern distances between the string posts.

The bottom and top were thinned about half a mm to about 2,7 mm in the bottom and 3 mm in the top. The bottom of the neck pocket got a plate in hard maple milled and glued in, the soft spruce in the neck block can otherwise give in to the string tension. A wood screw was pulled through the neck block from the inside into the foot of the neck when the neck was glued in place. The neck got its carbon fiber rod and a new fingerboard in light rosewood was made. The holes for the tuning screws were plugged and new ones were drilled. The bridge was extremely wide, all my bridge blanks were too short and I had to use a thick fretboard blank to be able to make the replica.

Here I got real benefit from my new jig to adjust the bend on the strong brace under the fingerboard with a loose neck, fingerboard and brace. When the neck angle was adjusted towards the bridge, a triangular shim of 1 mm under the board would be needed for the fingerboard to rest flat against the top. Instead, I gave the bracea a more strongly curved bottom and pushed the top up against the underside of the fretboard using adjustable abutments at the ends of the brace. With the right bend in the brace, the fretboard lay flat against the top, which got a nice rounding when the brace was glued on.

A K&K mic was mounted and the crack in the side got a piece of maple veneer glued with the grain across the crack. To withstand the force that pushes up the brace against the top, a pair of stronger abutments was made and glued to the sides. Note the carelessly made kerfing!

Gluing the neck in my neck glueing jig was undramatic as the neck has already been adjusted almost perfectly.

The fretboard was shaped to a small relief and had brass-colored EVO frets fitted. The measurement of the intonation also went well, but I have to admit that it is a rather boring task that takes far too long :-/ The new jig to adjust the intonation at the bridge works very well anyway. A nut and asegmented saddle were manufactured.

There was not much to do with the modern varnish, fortunately alcohol varnish adheres well to anything. The whole guitar got a coat of alcohol varnish on top of the old one. The shiny spirit varnish was matted down with 000 steel wool and polished to semi-gloss with a pair of white tube socks on both hands. They are good as you do not leave fingerprints on the new and soft varnish while you are polishing, on the other hand you have to be careful as you do not have a good thumb grip when handling the guitar!

The last step after mounting mother-of-pearl and side dots in the fingerboard, as well as a guitar strap knob on the neck foot (and the GammelGura label inside), is vibration. The guitar vibrates for a total of three days after the neck is glued, this one needed another day before everything was ready.

I think it sounds as it should with a slightly woodier tone than I am used to. I hope I did the guitar justice and that it will live on as a fine instrument after all its adventures 🙂