El Degas GB-26

I had acquired this guitar when purchasing two violins. At first glance, it just seemed like it had bridge lift and somebody attempted to fix it. Upon further inspection, the guitar had belly bulge, the soundboard caving in at the sound hole and the heel of the guitar pulling out.

I have come across the brand El Degas once before and did some research into this guitar. It is actually a Japanese brand guitar during the Lawsuit Era and it seems that the guitars were hit or miss with quality. This particular model is a copy of a Gibson Hummingbird Studio model and it doesn’t seem like there are many out there or left.

The bridge took a while to get off as it was hard to get past the large amounts of glue in the gap where the bridge lift was happening. But once off, the Thompson belly bulge plates were used to try to straighten out the belly bulge.

Checked on the belly bulge after a day of clamping and the bulge was still there. I did a second round with the Thompson belly bulge plates and used a 2×4 to give the spot a little extra to help push down the spot as it was right behind the bridge.

In the end, I had to plane a flat spot at the bridge cavity in order to get the bridge to sit properly. The bulge isn’t as bad now but it still affected the bridge area. I had gotten a 3D printed replica of the Bridge Doctor before and tested it out on this guitar. Unfortunately, it snapped after being on after a few hours. A new one was printed and will be installed when I get it.

With the bridge being glued on, addressing the neck was next on the list. I have never done a neck reset before but this wasn’t the first time I had to take a neck off. The previous guitar was the Seagull and it was held in by four bolts. I was assuming this guitar had a dovetail.

It took a bit of work to get the neck off and it was actually held in by 5 dowels in the heel which I was not expecting at all. With the neck off, I adjusted the neck angle and installed the wood inserts I use on my guitar builds.

After getting the neck back on, the height alignment was lower than it was before I glued the fingerboard section down. I initially thought it could have been because the printed Bridge Doctor had snapped; A newly printed Bridge Doctor didn’t make a difference on the possibility of belly bulge causing high string action.

The frets on the guitar are really low as well as the fingerboard being tapered as it gets to the soundhole. These would be factors in the string height of this guitar.

The guitar still sounds decent for its age and condition.