Deciding to buy an acoustic, via the web, which you have never tried or physically seen is pretty idiotic, but something I did last year. Despite tying out a Lareevie which I found ideal, I went for the Vintage Gordon Giltrap deluxe, possibly as I can't resist a bargain. The spec sheet reads off the scale, an ebony bound neck, gold Grover tuners, luthier designed, a cedar top, rosewood back and sides, mahogany neck, fishman Blendsys pickup and a full hard case, I mean, it's a wish-list of an instrument.
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| Finished Item. |
However good it is, with this guitar there is still room for improvement which is outlined here. The bits I didn't like; A satin finish to the top and headstock, I really prefer gloss, The fret ends are not what I would call "vintage feel" to be polite, and the action could be better, especially as I have a light touch and the neck is wider than average. So how to make this go from great to stunning and satin to gloss?
Pretty much a selection microfibre cloth grits and Meguiars ultimate compound. If you work a small area at a time and sand whilst using a lubricant (spray wax polish) as the grit reaches its cutting limit the sound of the cutting action disappears. Being an acoustic top this noise becomes pronounced enough to use as a good guide preventing any chance of sanding through the existing finish. I went from 400 - 600- 800- 1000. 1500 and 2000 grit and then carefully removed all cutting debris.
I then masked off everything but the top and buffed with Maguires with a new soft sponge on a battery drill. Other stuff was the headstock to gloss, frets levelled, profiled and polished to mirror, fret ends filed round and the bridge and pins also sanded until I got a reflective finish. The ebony fretboard also was sanded to a polish with foam backed micromesh. The foam back on the micromesh allows cross sanding without producing tramlines in the ebony. Normal paper always seemed to leave cross-sanding marks.
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| Polished headstock and Truss Rod cover. |
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| Ebony sanded to a polished finish, and frets profiled and rounded |
The fretboard is bound with no fret-ends, which is not in any specification that I have seen, Odd marketing as I see a bound neck as a big plus.
The TUSQ saddle was sanded to remove the majority of height, but I then cheated by individually setting string height by filing each bridge position. Luckily there is enough string break behind the bridge to ensure the string is still firm over the saddle and held well by the pin. As the saddle height drops the leverage on the top reduced, so the bow of the top also reduces, which in turn further reduces the string height. This became a long and iterative process, but the guitar will tune down a whole tone (D) without buzz, to me it sounds best a half tone down with 11thou strings fitted.
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| Fret final polish |
The sound is very full, the bass is wonderfully controlled
and the mid and high are seamless. It plays beyond expectation, as I said
earlier, I keep it tuned a semi-tone down. The blendsys pickup has a very low
output, I presume dictated by a very low 3V battery, which is a limiting design
choice. It works well with an external 1" condenser. When recording I
found the phase match between the external condenser and the internal pickup be
out so the internal pickup needed ~2-3ms of delay depending on how far
the external microphone was. Otherwise the sound will thin. I did find
the sound was best without the pickup fitted, but the pickup is hard wired in
so I suffer it's presence if just playing acoustically. Possibly the last guitar I'll ever buy, and possibly the last one I would ever sell. I can't say better than that.
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