Damn, 1932. This guitar saw the rise and fall of the Nazi party, the assassination of JFK, Watergate, the rise and fall of The Berlin Wall, the start of Rock and Roll, 9/11, and most importantly, the rise of Justin Bieber, our lord and savior.
I like how the output jack for the clearly-not-stock pickup was brought out the f-hole, even thought it look odd. That shows a lot of respect for the instrument.
Great video, thanks! On the tool you are using to scrap the fret groves, you could make one from high carb steel by using a jewelers flat graver. A really high end one is $15 to $20.
This was fun. My favorite band (the New Orleans-based trad jazz band Tuba Skinny) often uses one or two guitars that look exactly like this. I suppose a guitar player traveling from gig to gig would benefit from a metal body like these have, and the funky sound is perfect.
I did some repair on a 50 year old Soviet acoustic guitar. Somebody had previously taken off the fingerboard and put in a homemade gibson style truss rod, then they've glued the fingerboard back, but it was very wavy. And the old brass frets were worn down quite heavily. I removed them, sanded the fingerboard to the best of my abilities flat (it didn't have a radius originally, so I didn't add one either). And I've put in stainless steel jumbo frets. It looks guite funny, but it brightened up the originally quite dark and muffled sound of the guitar that was caused by the poor choice of wood they've used, and many many different factors
Summary: The transcript discusses the restoration process of a 1932 National Triolian guitar. The guitar has a unique spray-painted beach scene on the back and had undergone some modifications over time, including adjustments to the nut and tailpiece. The main issue prompting the restoration is the worn-out, 85-year-old frets, which are too low and have been redressed multiple times. The restoration involves removing the old frets using a modified soldering iron, resizing the fret slots, and installing new, heavier wire frets with glue for a secure fit. The process includes leveling, crowning, and polishing the new frets, crafting a new nut, and distressing it to match the guitar's aged appearance, ultimately resulting in a fully restored and playable instrument.
Really interesting to compare to more recent videos and see how many small differences in tooling and approach there would be if you did this same job today.
Double action rods rule! Just installed a double-action mando rod into an early 60's Harmony H-49 Jupiter that had a broken OEM rod. That neck never had such great adjustment travel, but it is a little weird seeing an allen head nut adjuster under the t-rod cover.
Funny u noted the 'puff of smoke' where there is cyanoacrylate superglue. I have noticed many times mini explosions when working with dry cyano. Dropped a drill in a dry clump of it once and there was quite a little explosion ... scared me!
I got a 1930s pear-shaped tenor National for $20. back in the early 80's. An old fellow came into the shop and said it had belonged to his wife that had recently passed away. He wanted it gone. I cleaned it up and made it play great and got serious money for it.
@@DelTangBrav for sure, I buy and sell guitars, and I love getting good deals, but I despise the pawn shop approach of aggressively trying to scam people, for lack of a better word, by paying the lowest possible $ amount for valuable instruments when people aren't aware of their value or are in a tough spot. When I was young I got badly ripped off by a local guitar shop. I won't go into what I sold and what they gave me for $, but it was criminal.
Watching you polish the frets and hearing you talk about using 3 or 4 successively smaller grits until your fingers feel like falling off, makes me wonder if perhaps there is a way to use ----or adapt/modify ---- some type of mini or micro sized pad sander or crevice sander, if such a thing exists.
Another great vid. Thanks. I love hearing the fixed guitar at the end of the segments. I would've liked to have heard a little more of the bottom end of this reso. Have you done any repairs vids on resonators?
Is it bad to use a rotary tool with a small polishing wheel and polishing compound on frets? I have done that in the past to make the frets of my guitars shiny again, and it's a very fast way of doing that. Awesome work man, subbed.
Re the frets... My duolianhas the original style bar frets. Just that he had a in standard regret in is past. Also my feet board is hard ebony... No law...
Some of the earliest duolians had an ebonized cardboard fretboard, like a high pressure laminate. I've never heard of a genuine ebony board on a duolian, which was the "budget model".
Bound maple neck = triolian. Unbound rosewood= duolian. I've worked on five Nationals from the 30's and I've never encountered bar frets. That's unusual.
Yes, we've tried that. There's enough spring in most national tailpieces that they rise and the string ends up pretty close to the same level. The real solution is a neck reset but it wasn't in this guys budget.
