I wouldn't recommend you do this at home but that's just what I did.
I got the Canora a few years back. It had a crummy bridge. One day I got a towel and a hot iron and melted the bridge off the top. Okay, I melted the glue but you get the picture.
I bought the tailpiece at Rufus's Guitar Shop in Kits/Point Grey in Vancouver. For about a year, I used a piece of oak as the bridge. Later I bought a busted banjo (are you seeing a pattern here?) and discovered a banjo bridge could work pretty well on a guitar top. There are always concerns of pressure on the top/table and pushing down where it is designed to pulled on...but well I took the chance.
Switching to a banjo bridge (Grover - $7.95 at Neil Douglas Guitar Shop in New Westminster), required the use of fewer strings. Fine by me. The neck is classical guitar thick and I always wanted a baritone uke so in a way this is a tailpiece, flat-top, steel-string baritone uke.
Recently, I electrified it with the removable single coil Fishman pickup. The cheap one. But I cut the cord and installed it with a jack. The jack I put in the lower side bout but recently I put it in the front...so yeah there's a hole in the side now.
Because, volume is an issue, the pickup is mounted high in the hole (which was too small and I simply gouged through the plywood to give the pickup maneuvering room). The pickup is set up on washers. The closer the pickup is to the strings, the louder the guitar when amplified. I'm not going to candy-coat it. That's what I did. It sounds quite raunchy overdriven through my Radio Shack Stack. It's comprised of a Realistic six channel board split into two mic channels that feeds into my very fancy Optimus 20 Watt MPA 40 amplifier which goes to my golden Norwegian 8" speaker, pre-57! The speaker is exactly the ones used as PA speakers in schools. It's killer. I'm joking. I don't really know what a gearhead would think of it.
3 comments:
I'll see if this lets me upload some pics. I 'upcycle' many old broken guitars, and today I picked up a Canora Model 2941 steel string acoustic guitar. Has a nice old scratchplate with a birdlife scene on it, whole guitar is black. It's Made in Korea, got old Gibson style mother of pearl neck inlays, an odd looking bridge with 2 flat head screws for height adjustment (very odd indeed - maybe after market), missing a couple of machine head ibserts, and the nut seems smaller than the neck width - looks like someone replaced the original, maybe it was broker, with one that is too small for the guitar. Anyway, haven't strung her up yet (just got home), will then see if it's worth replacing the missing or wrong parts. Hopefully she'll turn into a nice playing/sounding guitar! I have no idea if it's old or newer - I don't know when they stopped producing Canora's. Cheers, Waz
I just picked up an old canora 12 string for five bucks. Needs a bridge and one machine turner broken. Otherwise it looks good. Any advice.
Hi Stemmy. Sorry for not getting back sooner. Like a year sooner.
Anyhow, just do it. I've recently turned the Canora into a FOUR STRING. I've narrowed the neck. I now use a banjo bridge and a guitar tailpiece. YOu could try that. I did glue on a bridge to my TORTURED Suzuki classical guitar. It works. Not the best sustain or tone, I have to say...jj
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