2010s Gelsemani (Costa Rica) Classical Guitar

This is a cool, folk-style classical guitar with a "Gelsemani Guitars" mark in the soundhole. It has wood-burned decorative touches and appears to be made entirely out of a mahogany-like wood through the body and neck and a rosewood-like wood in the board and bridge. I love the "zero fret" touch and the general folksiness of it. This is my kind of guitar -- something friendly!

A customer of ours from Maine bought this guitar from the builder while he was in Costa Rica. Since then it came back to the States with him and proceeded to dry out, get a big crack in the back, and its action climbed skyward. That's the condition it arrived in and, due to the Spanish neck joint, the job was to figure-out how to get it playing its best.

Jose and I tag-teamed fixing this one -- he tackled the level/dress job on the frets and fit cleats to the big crack on the back. I filled the crack and then did a big recarve to the bridge itself. This bridge was originally a tall, "tie-block" bridge in the normal classical style. I cut all of that off, fit a lower saddle, and converted it into a "string-through" bridge in the fashion of a number of modern ukulele builds.

This has all, by hook and crook, gotten the action down to a standard 3/32" at the 12th fret and it now plays spot-on and quickly. I'm very happy at having rescued this for the owner as it's now both a reminder of his time out of country and also a perfectly-playable guitar.