After many ifs and buts, I am up and running with the batch again. It took its time to tidy up the shop and build a rolling shutter for the new band saw. I have had an unusual number of distractions also with very interesting objects and an apprenticeship week. I have also worked on an article in English about my unique methods that will be published in American Luthierie, hopefully this year. It feels good to get started again!
- Total length: 92,5 cm
- Top (upper round, waist, lower round): 24 - 18 - 30,8 cm
- Side (neck block, waist, end block): 7,2 - 8 - 7,7 cm
- Neck: V-shape
- Fingerboard (nut, 12th, bridge): 44 - 56 - 62 mm
- String length: 62,5 cm
- Paint: Spirit varnish
- Weight: 1107 g
The first of the remaining objects in the batch to be completed is number 178, a small old European parlor in rather deplorable condition. It was complete, but with lots of cracks in the top, bottom and sides. At some point, it has been renovated, cracks have been repaired with carpentry glue and provided with an impressive carved "monster bridge" in maple or birch, similar to those made by KB. I think it is old and from the end of the 1800th century, the size, fretboard in the same plane as the top of the head, the tuners and the bracing of the top indicate it.
That the bridge has been replaced can be seen in the double rows of string holes in the top, it originally had a mustache bridge. Of course, such a large bridge is not good for the sound, but without it the top would look awful and it would lose all its charm. It must be kept. The matching and equally charming tuners were fully functional and could be retained. The fretboard, which was thin and flat, was replaced with a new and thicker rosewood one that was given a 16 ″ radius. I found a plank that fit well in both color and texture against the bridge.
It is not visible in the pictures, but the lid was sunk probably 1 cm in front of the bridge. The reason for this was the completely incorrect placement of the lower brace, below the bridge instead of in front. For some reason, they did so on early parlor guitars. Probably when tops began to sink in from the rotation, they switched to placing the brace in front of the bridge. Both sideshad really long cracks, both repaired with carpentry glue. The glue was cleaned off and the cracks were glued with hot skin hide glue and got a reinforcement of 0.6 mm maple veneer with the grain across the crack on the inside.
The bottom, which was thin and in a piece of wood, had a solid diagonal crack.
The rop was only about 2 mm thick with several cracks. Either the top was thin already at the time of manufacture, or the top had been thinned out during the previous renovation. To make the top stronger, I glued on a diamond-shaped about 1 mm thick spruce plate, with the grain in the same direction as the top, under the bridge on the top inside before I glued the new bracing. The bridge plate was given a narrow extension to the side in an attempt to improve it. It turned out that this change did not give a noticeably better sound in any of the objects I made in the batch (not worse either!). In the future, I will probably return to the simpler form I used before this batch.
The bottom and side had a special and contrasting vein painting. The one who made it was skilled, but did not make it subtle! The solid V-shaped neck was unusually not completely painted black.
Some pictures after the disassembly. A piece of the bottom came loose at the end block, to loosen the thin bottom without damaging it more, I sawed off the top of the neck block.
To loosen the carpentry glue, the glue was soaked with water-soaked paper strips.
Here I'm gluing the maple veneer over the second of the long cracks in the sides. A fitting piece had already been glued on top of the neck block.
The bridge was in a piece of maple or birch, but it had cracked in some places. The pieces were glued together with hot hide glue.
The diamond-shaped reinforcement and the new braces and cleats were glued in my go-bar with a radius plate as an abutment that matches the curvature of the braces at 30 ″.
The customer wanted a K&K pickup fitted, which is easy when the bottom is off. As the bottom was thin, it had not shrunk much in width despite the long crack. I was able to glue the cracks together and still make the bottom fit well against the sides when gluing the bottom. To make the bottom fit, the sides is pressed in a few mm on both sides at the narrowest point. The circumference of the sides decreases and the bottom can fit perfectly on the rest of the sides. Excess bottom in the narrowest place can be easily scrapped off with a sharp knife when the bottom is glued.
I had problems with the neck gluing and had to redo it once to get the right angle to the saddle. The sharp V-shape of the pin in the dove-tail attachment made it difficult to control the angle. As always with old parlor guitars made for gut strings, the neck angle was far too steep, I probably had to file away 3 mm on the tip of the neck foot. The bridge was evenly high and not lower on the treble side, so I planed down the top on the treble side a couple of mm and matched the color with stain and a little lamp black (which mimics dirt).
The frets were mounted, and the guitar was measured for nut intonation. My nice little jig for intonation of the saddle also worked on this bridge. There was plenty of room for an intoned saddle.
Since the bridge was not planed down when I measured it, I used my old method to find the intonation point with the back of a thin drill (my jig will be at least about 2,2 mm high).
A very thin zero nut (a ground-down old ebony nut) was super-glued to a tape to guide the strings sideways during the measurement.
A suitable segmented saddle was manufactured.
The guitar got a round of clear spirit varnish after a little staining of fresh wounds. The tuners had bushings fitted as the holes for the tuning posts were loose and worn.
After three days of vibration (which was done when the neck was glued to the body) it turned out that it actually sounded really good despite the oversized bridge! With four plugs and the two unwound strings without plugs, the volume was even on all strings. I also succeeded well both with the height of the saddle and the intonation. The original tuners also worked perfectly. I am very pleased with the result, I especially like the charming patina from the bridge, the worn vein painting and the tuners. It is old and ravaged, just as it should be.
