I had to show this off. Not sure when this would have been made, late 60's or 70's. This was one of two "toy" guitars that my grandfather would let us kids beat on at his house to keep us off his nice guitars. I'm working on restoring the other one now... But anyway. I inherited this guitar after my grandparents deaths, almost 10 years ago now. When I first got it I tinkers with it a little to try to get it playing better, but over the last week I really put the work in and this thing plays as good as it can now and I love it. The bridge was too low, so I glued a strip of Maple to the bottom and trimmed/thinned it to get it right, the nut was cut WAY high, so I took it down. The trail piece was installed off center from the factory, so I moved it to the correct place, which also happened to be exactly on the joining seam for the sides... Seems like that should have been an easy mark... The tuners have some issues, with the prerequisite bent D tuners shaft and the G is stiff as hell, but they still function OK. So they stay for now. I also leveled a couple of the frets and polished them all up including the bridge fret. I got it strung up with a new set of extra lights yesterday and it just sings now... For a "board with strings," as my grandpa used to call it, it plays and sounds really good now. I am so happy I ended up with these so I could give them a new life and keep around a family heirloom that could have just as easily went into a yard sale (which I think is where my grandpa got this in the first place) or a landfill. I'll show you guys the other one when I get it done.
This and the other guitar I mentioned were stored in a hall closet in my grandparents house without cases and were bashed around so much, I have no idea how they aren't in worse shape. When me and one of my cousins were visiting at the same time both of us wanted this one, but it always had 5 strings on it, while the other only every had 3 strings with a D string that could not be tuned... haha.
I finally finish building a guitar, go to play it, and then remember, "oh yeah, that's right. I suck at playing... Why did I build another guitar again?"
