2000 Gibson Songbird Deluxe Lefty Dreadnought Guitar

Modern Gibson acoustic guitars sure are interesting. Despite the Martin/Hummingbird-style body shape and long, 25 1/4" scale length, this guitar sounds decidedly Gibson. It has a burly, saucy-in-the-mids, rumbly on the bottom voice. It's maybe a bit like a chunkier-sounding Advanced Jumbo. The owner seems to be running mediums on it and they give it a lot of presence and girth.

Compared to something like a J-50, said mediums and the long scale length give a more tense feel to the strings on the neck, but it does have more of that "Martin accuracy" under the fingertips -- no need to worry about bending things out of tune as you play quickly.

Work included: cleating one top crack below the bridge, a minor fret level/dress, and a setup. The saddle had to come down a lot to get the action on-spec so I also string-ramped behind it to get a better break-angle for the strings. It's now playing spot-on with 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action at the 12th fret. The neck is straight and the truss works.

Scale length: 25 1/4"
Nut width: 1 11/16"
String spacing at nut: 1 1/2"
String spacing at saddle: 2 3/16"

Body length: 19 3/4"
Lower bout width: 16"
Upper bout width: 11 3/8"

Side depth at endpin: 4 7/8"

Top wood: solid spruce
Back/sides wood: solid Indian rosewood
Neck wood: mahogany
Fretboard: rosewood

Neck shape: 12" radius with slim-C back profile

Bridge: rosewood

Saddle: synthetic, undersaddle element underneath

Nut: replacement bone

Weight: 4lb 12oz

Condition notes: minor crazing/finish checking on the top, a few tiny nicks/dings, but could be considered "shopworn" -- it's very clean.

I love the board inlay!

The abalone rosette is a nice touch as well.