c.1950 Kay Jumbo Guitar

This is the selfsame jumbo from a few posts back, albeit finished up. Neck set, black-topping, new bridge, bunch of cleaning, misc. repairs, setup... and in the end...? Huge tone. This guitar is essentially a J-200 built by Kay, with a longer (26" vs 25.5") scale. It sounds just as wonderful as a big vintage J-200, too, with careful bracing nearly identical to a Gib. 17" lower bout of course... perfect for big chords and backing play as well as snappy leads up the neck (plenty of power).

It's x-braced, with solid (I was surprised by that) one-piece flamed maple back, and solid flamed maple sides... with of course a nice spruce top. Neck is 5-ply maple and some sort of contrasting hardwood. Ebony fretboard with big old (real) pearl blocks.

It's an upscale instrument for sure, but years of neglect and abuse really took their toll on this guitar. I took advantage of one of those abuses (a hole drilled in the side for a missing pickup jack) and popped in a Baggs M1 passive which sounds excellent.

I used one of my replacement Martin-style ebony bridges and made a foot out of contrasting holly to give the bridge some more height and at the same time continue the contrasting white/black effect onto it.

Ebony headstock veneer, missing some MOP. I may replace it at some point. New bone nut.

Neck is nice and slim and quick with big block pearl inlay in an ebony board. It's bound all around but I have to replace a few pieces of binding on the treble side.

Baggs M1 in the soundhole.

From the back with my oldy-but-goodie thunderbird strap...

Big old paddle headstock with some new Grover tuners.

Added a strap button to keep this fellow balanced.

Giant one-piece flamed maple (solid!) back. Love it. Too bad about all the wear & tear... but that's what makes this a perfect "show" guitar, too... no worries about wearing & tearing.

...did I mention wear & tear? Yikes. A lesson to anyone who wants to store instruments: store them CORRECTLY otherwise stuff like this happens!