1944 Levin Royal - pickup/pick guard tips?

[RJVB]

Nice find! And if you mean less than 1/10th the price of say an L48 I'm officially going to have to be envious!

The bridge had slots that were terribly deep and the high e and b strings were choking. After [...] filling in the string slots using the baking soda/super glue trick, the guitar now sings!

Nice work, you can hardly see it! Did you follow a video/tutorial how to do this with a wooden saddle, or just your common sense (or experience)? I'm going to have to do this too, sooner rather than later.

[littleknicky]

Nice find! And if you mean less than 1/10th the price of say an L48 I'm officially going to have to be envious!


Nice work, you can hardly see it! Did you follow a video/tutorial how to do this with a wooden saddle, or just your common sense (or experience)? I'm going to have to do this too, sooner rather than later.

Thanks!

I just packed the deep slots with baking soda and put a drop of superglue on top. The superglue wicks into the baking soda and I then let it dry for maybe 20-30min. I had to do this two times for one of the deeper slots. If I had to do it over again, I would have used some sawdust instead of superglue (perhaps from sanding the bottom of the bridge a little bit), as you can tell it's not matching if you look closely in person. The only thing I would be careful of is not making a mess with the superglue. You can always file away/sand what you have added, but cleaning up lots of glue can get you into a sticky situation.

[RJVB]

Thanks. In the meantime I've done my own slot - twice. Both time I used a low-tack take to mask of as much as possible while leaving only the slot exposed. The 1st time I used bone dust and must have missed a bit of the tape that have gotten into the slot because the filling came loose on one end. The 2nd time I used baking soda and was more careful with the tape. In both cases I had slipped a double layer of paper kitchen towel under the saddle, to catch any spills.

I think next time I'll use baking soda immediately. Where bone or wood dust will simply act as a matrix, I think the baking soda could also react chemically with the glue, leading to something that according to StewMac is as hard as glass. That's good enough for me.

Re: chemistry: I used an old chemists' trick my father taught me ages ago to apply the dust/soda: a piece of paper with a sharp fold. That gives you a fine make-shift spout on the paper that acts as a receiver for the dust you're creating; much easier than using tiny spoons IMHO.

[sgosnell]

I used cyanoacrylate and baking soda for years, but now I prefer, by far, UV resin. It cures as hard, but not until it's hit with UV light. Until then, it stays a somewhat thick liquid. It can be wiped off, some removed, more added, until you're ready to cure it. It's transparent, so hard to see in a slot. Some filing may be needed to get the slot to the perfect depth, but no need for any filing outside the slot, because you can easily remove everything outside the slot with a tissue or paper towel before curing. UV lights are readily available for very little money, and some kits come with a UV flashlight. If no UV light is available, the sun provides UV for free. I get my resin from ebay, but it's available in many places, such as hobby stores and of course Amazon if you care to buy there. I don't, but I'm not religious about it.

[littleknicky]

Slowly but Shirley.

Here's some progress pics of the Levin for those interested. Removed the old frets and leveled the fretboard. Installed new gold Evo frets and replaced the tuners with some Grovers which are much more similar to the originals.



Already playing and sounding much better!

Next steps are to get this thing amplified. I carefully opened up the original Wingtone pickup to see the damage, see the included pic. The middle wire is pretty stiff and it doesn't look like an overwhelming task to solder a new cable, but I might take it to shop to avoid any mistakes. I also picked up a DeArmond 1100, which was my original plan for a pick up on this guitar.



It would be neat to have two pickguards with the pickups attached so I could swap them out easily when desired, but I'm having trouble finding some good material to make a nice pickguard. Everything I can find in the EU seems to be a sticker of a photo of tortoise material on plastic! If anyone has any tips on where to find some nice tortoise material in the EU, it would be greatly appreciated!

[daverepair]

Beautiful guitar! I hope to someday try one of these Levins.

[cmajor9]

You might try contacting Halkan’s in Sweden. They’ve sold quite a few old Levins, and often have pickguards (and Kjell pickups) on hand.

[RJVB]

Everything I can find in the EU seems to be a sticker of a photo of tortoise material on plastic! If anyone has any tips on where to find some nice tortoise material in the EU, it would be greatly appreciated!

I don't, but why not make a wood pickguard from a few pieces of veneer? I had one made for my Loar which has a comparable finish (and had a fugly PG of ditto faux tortoise material). 2 layers of ash dyed almost black with a layer of "smoked oak" in between. The edge filed so the oak centre looks like binding, and the upper side finished in nitro lacquer. I have only gotten compliments about the result, including from the company themselves.

EDIT: I probably don't have to tell you that creating a sheet of laminate of this size is straigtforward.

[littleknicky]

You might try contacting Halkan’s in Sweden. They’ve sold quite a few old Levins, and often have pickguards (and Kjell pickups) on hand.

Thanks for the tip, just sent them a message!

I don't, but why not make a wood pickguard from a few pieces of veneer? I had one made for my Loar which has a comparable finish (and had a fugly PG of ditto faux tortoise material). 2 layers of ash dyed almost black with a layer of "smoked oak" in between. The edge filed so the oak centre looks like binding, and the upper side finished in nitro lacquer. I have only gotten compliments about the result, including from the company themselves.

EDIT: I probably don't have to tell you that creating a sheet of laminate of this size is straigtforward.

Cheers. Many options out there - looking for some translucent tortoise material to make a reproduction of the original.

[littleknicky]

I had a few people ask how this guitar sounds acoustically so made a quick recording. Thought I would share it here as well.

Cell phone with a rode videomicro - balanced the levels but no other effects.

[sys]

Great playing and a great sounding instrument. Warms my heart to see it brought back to life.