I love these crazy old American guitars, NGD
Aug 7, 2020 0:24:20 GMT
Brad Bechtel, Pickers Ditch, and 1 more like this
Post by alexkirtley on Aug 7, 2020 0:24:20 GMT
Over the past year or two I've developed a strong love for those cheap american 'catalogue' guitars and also a love for the wrecked project ones, this ticked both boxes and thought I'd show it off a little.
This is a fun one, a 1950's Old Kraftsman Jumbo made by Kay in Chicago, it really is jumbo too, even bigger than a J200 at 17 1/4" at the lower bout and an extra long scale length, 26"!
It's ladder braced, with the funky wrap around bridge and sounds very good!, I'll do a video of it at some point.
The previous owner had it converted to a lap steel, some of it was done well, but a guitar can be 'converted' to a lap steel by just adding an extra tall un-radiused nut and saddle, so quite why he did the neck 'reset' he did I'm not sure, the neck was removed and set back in so it wouldn't fully seat into the neck dovetail pocket, so the fingerboard extension was about 5mm farther out from the body, with a shim underneath it, the bridge had pulled up and had some epoxy or similar filler to fill the gap, the bridge bolts were the only thing really holding the bridge in place and the truss rod (a DIY effort, part of it incorporating part of a brass prong from an electrical plug, something second only to the guitar that had a butter knife re-enforced neck break) had snapped, so a neck reset, bridge re-glue, new truss-rod, refret and new nut/saddle it's playing pretty well!.
I've shown it next to a dreadnought so you can get an idea of the size of it!
This is a fun one, a 1950's Old Kraftsman Jumbo made by Kay in Chicago, it really is jumbo too, even bigger than a J200 at 17 1/4" at the lower bout and an extra long scale length, 26"!
It's ladder braced, with the funky wrap around bridge and sounds very good!, I'll do a video of it at some point.
The previous owner had it converted to a lap steel, some of it was done well, but a guitar can be 'converted' to a lap steel by just adding an extra tall un-radiused nut and saddle, so quite why he did the neck 'reset' he did I'm not sure, the neck was removed and set back in so it wouldn't fully seat into the neck dovetail pocket, so the fingerboard extension was about 5mm farther out from the body, with a shim underneath it, the bridge had pulled up and had some epoxy or similar filler to fill the gap, the bridge bolts were the only thing really holding the bridge in place and the truss rod (a DIY effort, part of it incorporating part of a brass prong from an electrical plug, something second only to the guitar that had a butter knife re-enforced neck break) had snapped, so a neck reset, bridge re-glue, new truss-rod, refret and new nut/saddle it's playing pretty well!.
I've shown it next to a dreadnought so you can get an idea of the size of it!
