Restored Slingerland ArchtopTenor Guitar

[GA-ME]

Fellows, I scored this old Slingerland Songster Archtop for a song and restored it for my friend and tenor guitarist/trio mate, Craig. She is pre-1936. The guitar suffered extensive water damage many moons ago and came to me in rough condition.  She is constructed of a 3 ply maple laminate back and sides topped off with a real nice solid, carved, ADI, top. It has a Braz fingerboard and bridge with bone saddle. She is bound in ivoriod top, bottom, and fingerboard.

The outer side laminate was delaminated from waist to waist and the back outer layer was also delaminated several inches up from the heel block. It had been partially sanded years ago( check out the sun-bleaching of the top) and was missing its fingerboard binding. The fingerboard was divot-ed end to end, across all four strings, so someone played her a LOT! There was a crack from the treble f-hole to the heel block.

I sealed the f-hole crack and it seems stable without cleating it. If it moves I'll cleat it then. I removed the worn frets and leveled the fingerboard and re-bound the fingerboard. I re-fretted her with #178 wire which was just right to create a slight backbow in the neck which corrected the slight up-bow out to almost no bow under tension. Man, try saying that ten times fast! I finished stripping the finish and re-glued all the delaminated sections and drop filled the few missing laminate sections with epoxy. I then sealed her with a couple coats of brushed on, one pound cut, shellac.

I sanded the shellac to 2000 grit and the proceded with an oxidizing varnish. Every three coats, or so, I leveled the varnish back to 2000 grit by wet sanding with Paraffin oil. After the last coat, I let her cure for a week or so and then wet sanded to 2000 grit. I followed this by hand buffing with 4F Pumice stone, suspended in Paraffin oil, followed by hand buffing with Rottenstone, suspended in Paraffin Oil.. The finish came out quite nice, the lighting in the finished photographs isn't that great but both Craig and I were pleased with the results.

The first two pics have about five coats of varnish and were taken in my bedroom/workstation. You can really see the staining from the water damage in the maple in the first pic.The last two are after ten or so coats and are at Craig's place.It was a bit dark, and I'm not much of a photographer, but I think ya get the idea.

She plays well up the neck with action of about 2.5 mm on the low C and about 2mm on the high A. She in-tonates well and has those nice clean Maple overtones. She projects like crazy and is actually a bit louder than my 000-60 with much nicer trebles! Craig sure likes playing her more than the plywood Harmony tenor he got from a yard sale years ago!

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[GA-ME]

Here is an add I found from the pre-1936 Slingerland Catalog on line. I was glad when I found the ad as it confirmed my suspicion that the top was ADI. She cost $30 new. Dang the new Groovers I put on her were about $10 more than she cost new!



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[BenF]

I can't pretend to know much about tenor guitars or archtops in general, but your attention to detail in the restoration looks top class.  It must be great to take something pretty beat up and make it look great and play well again.  Much respect!

[gtrplayer]

Nice job GA-ME.  And those pre-1936 prices aren't too bad.

gtrplayer

[jeremy3220]

Looks good. You should have done a full repair and replaced the two strings it's missing.

[ffinke]

No wonder $2/day was good wages back then!

Super job; something to be proud of.

f

[GA-ME]

Thanks guys!

Jeremy, I'll stick with the four string wack job multiple octave chords those things produce when tuned in fifths! The tenor really is a great sounding instrument when counterpoint lines and harmonized chord voicings are applied against Travis style pickin with, as I tease Craig, a REAL guitar!

[ncognito]

GA-ME--

What a beautiful restoration job you've done.  I love it when somebody takes something that others dismiss as not being worth the effort and turn it into something beautiful; in this case it's visually beautiful, and I'll bet with your attention to detail-- don't sound too bad either.  (It probably has a real nice tone.) 

I wonder if either you or your friend has heard of Bill Lauf, a tenor guitar player from CT?  He has a few albums out, and sometimes performs as a duo with Gordon Titcomb, a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who I've seen accompany Arlo Guthrie in concert.  Lauf may also have something in common with you (I assume that your forum name refers to being an Appalacian Trail through hiker?), in his younger days he hiked to Vermont and each night would perform in a different town along his route.

        DAVE

[GA-ME]

Dave, I haven't heard of Bill Lauf but I'll ask Craig. He didn't really play tenor before we started playing in our trio. He is a fine "regular" guitar player. He picked up the old cheap Stella plywood one on a whim. Oiur town had an historical festival and he went around town playing really old tunes on it tuned sort of like a guitar.

When we started playing together the two standard guitars were not really doing it with the harmonica and Craig brought it over on a whim and never brought a six string back. Now after a year and a bit the old one was flairing up his carpel-tunel issues because of the really high action. Anothe friend of mine, who is a luthier gave us a really good price and supplied the fret wire and binding for me to re do it with. This one plays like butter now and is much easier on my partners hands.

I get a lot of enjoyment from playing with Craig and my buddy John so, given the hand problems, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a good quality instument for a few bucks and a little sweat equity!

[GA-ME]

Lauf may also have something in common with you (I assume that your forum name refers to being an Appalacian Trail through hiker?), in his younger days he hiked to Vermont and each night would perform in a different town along his route.

        DAVE

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Dave, somehow I missed this earlier. Yeah I thru-hiked in 2003. Summited Katahdin on Sept. 25th. My trail name was Yo-YO. I met my fiance at the Ga-NC boarder at Bly-Gap. Took her back there, after I rel-earned to walk ,and asked her to marry me there! We were a week from leaving to thru-hike the PCT in 2005 whe I incurred a spinal cord injury and got detoured in life!

[ncognito]

[/color]

Dave, somehow I missed this earlier. Yeah I thru-hiked in 2003. Summited Katahdin on Sept. 25th. My trail name was Yo-YO. I met my fiance at the Ga-NC boarder at Bly-Gap. Took her back there, after I rel-earned to walk ,and asked her to marry me there! We were a week from leaving to thru-hike the PCT in 2005 whe I incurred a spinal cord injury and got detoured in life!

GA-ME--

You seem like a resilient individual; your story is very inspiring.  Thanks.

        DAVE

[unclrob]

Looks great.

[bluesman67]