This is a guitar I made with the great maker Stromberg in mind. He made big orchestral guitars until about 1954,when He died,IF I recall correctly. I need to get studied back up on guitars since I'm forgetting history,models,dates,etc..
I rebuilt a Stromberg Master 400 back about 1966. The owner had carelessly put his cigarettes under the strings and let them burn down. The Master 400 had a CELLULOID plate over the peghead about 1/8" thick,made of several black/white laminations. The maker beveled this celluloid at the edges,making it look multi layer bound. When the cigarettes burned down,they BLEW OUT cavities about the size of 1/2 of a dime. He's lucky that the whole peghead didn't blow up like black powder!!
He had had a pickup on the guitar,and now wanted it to look new again. I got it looking like new for him. I hope the slob took care of it,because today it is about a $200,000.00 guitar.
This guitar I made has a peghead shaped like the Master 400,which is large,and wider at the bottom than the top. They might have called it a"snake head" at Gibson. That style shape was introduced in the 30's by Gibson. It reflects the type of naivety found in guitars like Strombergs. They aren't spot on perfect (Strombergs were pretty crude close up!) but they have charm.
The cutaway's shape has to be gotten exactly right,or the whole guitar looks bad. You need that nice FAT look. The cutaway on the Gretsch is a particular shape,too,but different from this.
My peguead IS really bound,though,and has the type(not copies) of rather large pearl inlays of ribbons inlaid into it,with hand engraved letters cut into them,and blacked,the technique Stromberg used.
This guitar is 17" wide,compared to 16" for the Gretsch I posted. The Master 400 was over 18" wide,but big as I am,I find a guitar that large to be uncomfortable to play for long.Not to worry,Stromberg also made guitars in the 17" width,the Master 300.
These small hand makers like Stromberg and D'Angelico were always competing with the giant,Gibson. Everyone was. Their model's sizes,and designations,like "400" mimicked the Gibson "Super 400." In those days,Gibson quality was at a high point. Today,though,the smaller maker's guitars are worth fortunes,being more rare,and Strombergs were VERY loud. They had to cut through brass sections in orchestras without pickups.
The guitar is maple,with a reddish brown sunburst similar to Stromberg's sometimes used color. The Ebony fingerboard is inlaid with plain pearl blocks,which is really an elegant way to ornament a fingerboard.
The pickups are Gibson P-100's. They are actually P-90's with 2 big coils. The single coil P-90 can sound a little wild at times,but it gave Merle Travis that great tone he had. So,I decided to try P-100's,because of the feedback,and wildness of the p-90. They were huge,and I thought they wouldn't sound good because they went down into the body about 1" deep!! I was afraid the magnetic fields would not capture the vibrations of the strings too well,they were just so big. Well,I was pleasantly surprised when I heard them. They sound just great,like a P-90,but with the wildness curbed just enough!! They had that Merle Travis tone!!
I selected a chrome 1950's tailpiece,and vintage 1950's Grover Imperials for this guitar. Those old Grovers used to be VERY hard to get,and $$$$,but they have been reissued,though the re issues are the late 1960's style with sharper edges than these rounded early types. I didn't get the picture in focus,though. Too much neck pain today!
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Originally Posted by george wilson
