1930s Kay Kraft Style A 2-Point Archtop Guitar

While popular opinion would have you believe these old Kay Krafts to be blues guitars (and they do sound great for metal-fingerpicked country-blues), I think they're best used as gypsy-jazz or swing instruments. When they're done-up proper, they have an alarming amount of cut, punch, and volume and a sauciness that comes out when you dig-into them like a madman (or madwoman). A big fat pick and a strong arm is what gets the juice out of these boxes, I think.

This one has been awaiting repair for consignment for some time and its owner said, "hey, I wanna try that!" -- I have a feeling it probably won't be quite his thing due to the snap of its sound, but at least the guitar is back to life, right?

Work included a neck reset (glued and bolted), a new, rosewood, 12" radius fretboard with 25 1/2" scale and medium-sized frets, a hairline crack repair to the back, replacement adjustable rosewood bridge, general cleaning, and a good setup. It's playing spot-on with 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action at the 12th fret.

The top on this guitar is ladder-braced (as opposed to the x-bracing seen on many of these) and it has a dovetailed neck joint (rather than the goofy adjustable joint) and a 14-fret neck. The bottom of the heel was broken-off just past the dovetail so I replaced the missing tiny bit with a rosewood oversize heel cap.

The necks on these entry-level Kay Krafts are thinner and poplar, so due to the long scale length (originally they use 25 3/4" or 25 7/8" scale) one has to be careful with gauges. I like to use 46w-10s on them in either phosphor bronze, nickel, or gypsy-jazz-style silverplated copper. This one is currently wearing a custom 48w, 36w, 26w, 20w, 15, 11 set because the owner wants to try it out in an open tuning. At any rate, the neck is dead-straight with no tension on it but gains about ~1/64" relief tuned to pitch with the set on it. Anything heavier and I'd expect that relief to jump-up.

Specs are: 25 1/2" scale, 1 11/16" nut width, 1 1/2" string spacing at the nut, 2 3/16" spacing at the bridge, 14 1/8" lower bout, 10 1/2" upper bout, and 3 5/8" side depth at the endblock. The neck has a 12" radius to the board and a mild-to-medium, soft-V profile on its rear.

Materials are: solid spruce top, solid birch(?) back, ply maple sides, poplar neck, and rosewood fretboard and bridge. The pickguard, tailpiece, and tuners are original but the fretboard and bridge are not.

Aside from a longer, repaired hairline crack on the back, there's only one tiny non-issue hairline crack on the top running next to the treble-side "point" where the pickguard attaches.

Interestingly, this guitar has a squared-off slotted headstock rather than the usual "Gumby" headstock shape with the points.

Note how my new board is Fender-style with some extra length behind the nut.

The new fretboard and medium-sized frets make a huge playability difference. Usually these have flat, ebonized-maple boards and small, rectangular-ish frets. This now handles like a fancy new guitar neck-wise.

The bridge is from my parts-bins and is older but in good shape. I recut its wings shorter to give it the same width as the original bridge base would have had. It has some adjustment room down and plenty to go up if you're into slide playing.

The lighter color under the tailpiece's leading edge is a pad of leather which mutes the extra string-length behind the bridge to damp overtones.

That decal is looking good, huh?

A good portion of the heel's bottom was broken-off in the past. I replaced part of it with a rosewood extra-large heel cap and then let the rest ride. When I reset the neck, I set it a little higher in the dovetail as well so that there would be plenty of clearance for the fretboard extension over the body and make an adjustable bridge a possibility.

The neck itself is reinforced with 2 bolts installed internally and it's glued, too.

Here's a very close-up of part of the repaired hairline crack on the back -- it has cleats all along its length on the inside. It's hard to see in the pictures but it runs a good 3/4 of the length of the back -- but is good to go.

After installing the board, I did not retouch the finish after blending the edges to the old neck. It's only a cosmetic thing as I sealed the sanded area.

I had to raise the tailpiece to keep it from contacting the top (this tailpiece has a dumb design that means it pulls down onto the top when tuned-up) as it'd done its whole life, judging by the wear on the body. The screwholes evident below it in this picture are now filled.

As you can see, there's plenty of back-angle on that bridge from the tail! Also -- the top is not collaposed -- there's just shadow from the bridge on the top in front of it in the photo.