It's been a while since the last blog post, sometimes you choose to do other things. Work has continued in the premises as before and both finished GammelGura and repairs have passed by in silence. Repairs have been made. Some of my jigs, which were working prototypes, have been rebuilt and refined. Better tools have been purchased and some methods refined. New ideas have been tested, not all with good results.
Two years ago, I received many GammelGura orders that I accepted without thinking. Saying no is also an option... It's taken longer than I thought to shorten the queue, especially as I also had a lot of regular (and some time-consuming) repair work from back in the day that also needs to be done. Right now, the goal is to reduce the length of the queue and get down to an acceptable waiting time of about 1 year for new orders. I have an order freeze for GammelGura at the moment if you are not willing to accept a long waiting time.
Now I intend to pick up the thread again on the blog and be more diligent, now that the brain fog from the pollen season has started to lift. I start with the latest GammelGuran, a worn and handled European parlor.
Andreas Rydman, who is one of the people who runs "Guitar Geeks Podcast“, sent me three old Parlor guitars two years ago. All three are part of an ongoing batch of 5 guitars, this is the first of the three to be completed. By the way, all were more or less unplayable and also subject to dubious repairs with carpenter's glue. When I took them apart, I also saw that some were unusually carelessly and quickly manufactured. All had non-matching tuners, the positive was that they were complete with no missing parts.
To make the work more efficient, I usually work in parallel with about 5 guitars in a batch until they are all half finished. The guitars are taken apart, cracks are glued and damage is repaired, tops and bottoms are thinned, a carbon fiber rod in the neck is installed, materials for the fingerboard and bridge are shaped, bracing's are made and glued, new tuners are installed. When everyone is ready for a final fix; bottom gluing, neck gluing, bridge gluing, fretting, measuring intonation, making the saddle and nut and varnishing, I complete the guitars one by one. The last job usually takes a week or two, or at least always longer than I think. Before the final adjustment and crowning of the frets, I have realized that the guitar needs to rest over a weekend with tensioned strings under vibration to settle.
A few extra mishsped bottoms in the batch were soaked with water and allowed to dry under pressure. All necks have received the parts needed for the installation of a carbon fiber rod.
The necks are covered with plastic wrap as the sticky epoxy glue ends up everywhere. In addition to the carbon fiber rod; a round rod in birch to fill the hole in the carbon fiber rod with, a piece of birch rod to reinforce the narrow neck foot and provide better attachment for a wood screw through the neck block from the inside and a cover strip in birch on top of the carbon fiber rod to be able to glue the fingerboard with hot skin glue.
Both the bottom and top are thinned down to just under 3 mm. The bottom is thinned in my drum sander, the top is more difficult but thinned down with planes, knifes and a small electric sander. I have a gauge that can measure the thickness of the top using a magnetic ball on the outside, without them it would have been a lottery to thin the top.
Here I am almost halfway through with all the guitars in the batch. All tops and bottoms got their braces and the necks their carbon fiber rod. The only things left is to select and fabricate fretboard and bridge blanks for all guitars before I start finishing the guitars one at a time.
For once, I remembered to take some pictures before I started disassembling, I had already cut the strings. Each guitar gets its own marked plastic lunch box for all the goodies that are picked loose.
Taking it apart went well, except chips of the kerfing that came off with the bottom in several places. I mark the different parts with a piece of tape so as not to mix up the guitars in the batch (some of which are very similar).
The bridge and fingerboard were not in good condition and needed replacing, the odd tuners were later replaced with Stewmac Golden Age söotted head tuners. Some cracks had already been repaired with carpenter's glue, but good enough to not need to be broken up, just spruced up. The brace behind the bridgeplate is an old and less good solution. I wrote 1910 on the label, but now that I write this I think it is a little older than that, from about 1900. The bottom was shrunk and dented.
A replica of the bridge and a new fingerboard were made in rosewood. The new braces that were glued in the bottom and top got their final shape, the height and ends of the braces were carved down so that the tapping tone and sustain I get by tapping hard with a finger on the bridge felt "right". Cleats patches and cleat strips were glued over the cracks in the top and bottom. A K&K mic was also fitted before the bottom was glued using hot hide glue, with a small addition of urea (for longer open time), in my special jig for bottom gluing.
I spent a whole day aligning the neck to the body, the neck also got a wood screw mounted through the neck block as it had the same simple attachment as a Levin without a true dovetail. This is one of the most difficult parts and always takes much longer than you think. Even the best effort can sometimes fail, as things happen when gluing or after a few days of tensioned strings. This neck I had to re-glue one more time after the reset, but before the final adjustment, when I ended up with a 5mm high saddle instead of 4mm. However, it was pretty easy to loosen the neck when for the first time I heated the neck from the outside with my heat lamp. With patience and just enough heat that doesn't melt the varnish, the heat reaches the glue and the neck can be loosened without major problems. Before loosening the neck, I measured exactly how much I needed to straighten the neck for an approx. 4 mm high saddle.
Here are pictures of the first neck gluing with hot hide glue, two feller gauges of 1 mm simulate the frets. A feeler gauge of 0.5 mm is usually needed on top of the bridge to avoid getting a too low saddle when everything is finished. This time it would have been perfect without the feeler gauge on top of the bridge! The neck gluing jig is good as you can easily adjust the neck a bit side-to-side with wedges, it is also easier to clamp down the fingerboard onto the top.
The neck was fretted and strung up and vibrated over the weekend. When the saddle became too high, the neck was reglued. The crowning of the frets takes place in my Stewmac jig using an aluminum beam with a ground-in negative relief of 0.15 mm. By sanding along the frets with a fine sandpaper, the frets get the same fine relief as the aluminum beam. You can see that all the frets have been touched by the sandpaper from the dust on the sandpaper. The frets over the top should have a minimal "slope off" so as not to rattle with low string height.
As usual, the intonation was measured for each string. This one had an unusual configuration of the nut intonation points, with more than 3mm difference between the A string and D string intonation points. When the intonation is extreme, I always test with a couple of extra strings, but with the same result.
With a re-glued neck, new strings and an adjusted nut and saddle, I can say that it turned out very well, I am very happy with it. I like the worn look too 🙂
When Andreas picked it up, microphones were set up for an interview about GammelGura and this guitar. I talked on, far too much I think! In any case, here is the blog to listen to for those who can bear to hear; #399 – Old Gura
Thanks for a very interesting pod and blog update!
So fun to see your homemade ideas, solutions and homemade 🛠️ to cure these multi-disabled patients 😉
If my memory serves me correctly, I think I see parts of my patient there as well, which makes it extra exciting. It's great that we preserve and improve these cultural heritages together!
Yes, your guitar got stuck in the picture 🙂 It will be finished eventually, it's half finished right now.