I have spent a few weeks repairing, it seems that many want to have their guitars repaired after the holidays. Two interesting guitars were in for service, a Gottfrid Söderman from Docksta and a Frii from Umeå.

Gottfrid moved from Västerhus to Docksta in later years, both small places near Örnsköldsvik. He is the only guitar builder from the area I know of before Per Marklund. In recent years, he went from his usual standard model from the mid-1920s, which was a large lute guitar with a teardrop-shaped body, and built guitars with the usual guitar shape on the body. This was made in 1971 when Gottfrid was 84 years old. On the whole, a well-assembled guitar, although the detail work is not the best. Solid spruce in the top, ladder braced and probably plywood in the bottom and side. Neck in mahogany. The fretboard turned out to be a thin rosewood veneer on top of oak.

Put on the neck, glued the stable and bandaged. The fretboard turned out to be in two parts and cut off at the 12th band. In the usual sanding during the banding, I sanded through the thin rosewood veneer and then it was just a matter of sanding away all the rosewood veneer. The oak below was enough. Got a hearty laugh when I discovered that the daughters in the fretboard were - sticky notes! The old man was clever. Gottfrid also liked celluloid in untipped places, the stable leg on this one was in celluloid. Sounds perfectly OK and fits very well as a beginner guitar with adjusted string height, strung up with nylon strings.

I do not know much about Göran Frii, but Göran was also an inventor and freethinker when it comes to guitars, just like Gottfrid. Among other things, he manufactured electric guitars as early as 1953. This guitar looks like a large steel string guitar with cutaway and features of Fender, but is in fact a classical guitar. Probably made sometime in the 1960s. The fingerboard in unusually soft ebony or also ebonized fruit tree, was very wide - 52 mm at the upper saddle. The neck is typically U shaped flat as they often are on a classical guitar. The rib was an unusually sparse fan brace and clearly dimensioned for nylon strings. Lid in solid spruce and probably solid mahogany in the bottom, side and neck.

The brace between the sound hole and the bridge was broken and the top sunk. Steel strings had been strung, so the lid was also deformed around the bridge, which also was loose at the rear edge. I glued a new brace and glued the bridge. Someone had been on it before and glued a crack in the top and made a clumsy refret with a plastic nut. I sanded the fingerboard flat, made a refret and made a new bone nut. A "grommet" on the top tuning screw was missing. The tuning screws had thick posts and I had to drill out of a modern "grommet" in plastic as a replacement.

A very nice adjusting screw (see the guitars label) was on the neck foot which allows the neck to be adjusted even when the end of the fingerboard glued to the top. I like the construction that is so good that more people should use it! The wood bends at the attachment to the body, but without cracking. The bridge also had adjustable plastic pieces for each string. Just like Gottfrid, Göran liked screws in the bridge. There were three screws hidden under the gold-colored celluloid. I searched for the patent but did not find it (hence my previous post).

After vibration, it sounds really good. This is a very playable, fun and unusual nylon string guitar <img draggable="false" role="img" class="emoji" alt="" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.0/svg/1f642.svg">