Project guitar is COMPLETE!

[Diane Kauffmds]

If everyone remembers, I bought a $9 wreck from Ebay, which masqueraded as a guitar, with the idea that I could learn from it before building my first guitar. It started life as a 1950 Silvertone guitar. When I got it, it was trash, as you can see from the photos.

I replaced the top and fretboard. I stripped the rest of the wood, which was solid birch, fixed the cracked back, then put everything back together. I must have done something right, because the intonation is almost perfect; I will have to do a tiny bit of filing for the bass "E", but otherwise, no adjustment will be needed.

I did end up replacing the first fret last night. I couldn't figure out why I was making so many mistakes while playing it, when I realized that the treble E was missing a note! Yes, I filed down the first fret so much that, essentially, there was NO first fret for string 1. Hahaha! I should have leveled the fretboard better, but this is only one of an entire book I could write on what I learned from this guitar. It has a lot of boogers, but these are mistakes that I'd rather make on this guitar, than my kit.

Surprisingly, she has a very good, even tone, with great projection and a lot of sustain. I used my favorite, Engelmann Spruce; the fretboard and bridge are rosewood. The back and sides are solid birch.

So here we add another to the list of top-notch craftspeople on our Forum.
You did real good.

[johnnparchem]

Nicely done. It looks like it was a fun project.

[Ben-Had]

Great job. That is a great way to gain experience. I did several of those that way before starting my business. Keep it going.

[tippie53]

nicely done.
Thanks for showing it off.

[MaineGeezer]

Great idea for a way to learn. Interesting to see what might be done to a cheap guitar like that if one pays attention to the details, improves on the bracing pattern and wood thickness, etc.

[JLT]

You done good, Diane!

I've just had a similar encounter. I found an Oscar Schmidt/Washbourne dreadnaught (chinese made) at a yard sale tagged at "$85 or best offer" and offered him forty for it. He took it. The action was crappy, half the strings were nylon and the other half were steel, one of the bridge pins was missing and replaced by a piece of chopstick, and so on. But I could tell that it had a solid spruce top and figured, "What the hey."

I took it home, found a proper bridge pin for it, put a new set of strings on it, reset the action, and tuned it up. The thing actually sounds pretty damn good now, according to some people I jam with. The tuning machines are still low-end, but if I keep the guitar I'll put some Gotohs on it. I may also replace the plastic nut and saddle with bone ones. At any rate, I feel that I've done my part to put a disrespected but fairly decent guitar back into commission.

As I told you earlier, I've almost never felt that my time rebuilding derelict instruments was wasted. I've always learned something about construction or been able to practice an assembly technique. And I feel that I've honored the memory of whatever luthier put it together in the first place, even if he or she was just a worker on an assembly line.