2003 Froggy Bottom P12 Deluxe Parlor Guitar

Vermonters into boutique boxes tend to be proud of Froggy Bottom guitars -- if a little disquieted about how much they cost! Every one I've handled has been built to a very, very high level, so I understand the upwards price-drive on them. One shop can only build so many guitars a year, as it were.

This one's owned by a local who bought it second-hand and it's a superb piece of work. While it's roughly 0-size, it's a little narrower and elongated compared to a Martin 12-fret 0. I didn't do measurements, but the body also felt a little deeper. This one is spruce over rosewood and the sheer amount of sound coming out of this box is alarming. It sounds like a guitar 2 or 3 inches wider on the lower bout than it actually is and it has a gutsy-sounding bass to match. Behind the guitar it's noticeably darker-sounding but out front it has a voice like a souped-up 000-28 or similar and it has a little bit more of that edgy punch on the mids and trebles you might expect of an OM or dreadnought.

Basically -- it's a great box, is what I'm saying.

Still, it's a guitar, and they do guitar-like things as they age and live in not-ideal environments. This one has a ramped-up fretboard extension and badly needed a setup.

Work included: giving the frets on the extension a level/dress to remove as much of the ramp-up's effect as possible, recut of the original saddle for better compensation and action and a making a 2nd lower "summer saddle," clean-up of the naturally-worn "string ramps" behind the saddle, shim-up and adjustment of the nut, and a setup. Did I mention that it drives me crazy that the truss adjustment nuts for these are buried at the top of the neckblock? Detune, adjust rod, retune, detune, adjust rod... sigh. It plays spot-on, now, with a straight neck and 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action and strung with 12s.

Materials are: solid spruce over Indian rosewood, ebony fretboard and bridge, mahogany neck. The board feels like a compound radius of some sort and the neck has a thin-to-medium, C-shaped rear profile. Nut and saddle are bone.