Mid 19th Century German guitar
Here is an old guitar that was identified by George Gruhn as having been made in Germany sometime around 1850-1875. When I got it, most of the old brass bar frets had fallen out and the bridge was missing altogether. There were open seams and it was generally a wreck.Here it is in it's homemade solid oak coffin case:
Close up of the top:
Here's a shot of the top before I made the new bridge. The pin holes were ripped apart. I cut out a small rectangular section and bevelled the underside of the top. I grafted in a piece of spruce with a matching bevel.
I made a maple bridge and stained it black. I can't say it's absolutely correct but I patterned it after a similar German guitar that was for sale on ebay. The saddle is a strip of brass.
As stated, the frets were mostly missing; I had no luck finding bar fret material so I made my own.
I took an old brass plate that was a kick plate on an old store door and ripped it into strips on the bandsaw. I then filed them down to a consistent thickness and to take the burrs off from the bandsaw. The brass was only slightly wider than the original frets; I think the original frets were about 0.040" or 0.045" and this material was 0.050". That worked out well, as I wanted to re-cut the fret slots anyway, for a clean surface. I had to do all this without disturbing the patina of the stained maple fingerboard. Not an easy task, but it had to be done.
Amazingly the old tuners are intact and function, so I've left them alone. Note the tuner plate is inlaid flush with the side of the headstock.
The nut was ebony, no idea if it was original, but it was in poor shape. The spacing and slot height were completely off. I made a new ebony nut for it.
Note grafted headstock. I'm not sure if that qualifies as a scarf joint or not.
The side had a poor repair but I opted to leave it alone, as it is stable.
There is a chunk of purfling missing; I'm not sure what to do about that yet.
The back is one piece maple and has a slight arch.
It's a fun little guitar to play, not a lot of volume, but good action. I'd like to buy a set of gut strings for it next.