samick JZ203 archtop jazz guitar

This blog isn't so much about restoration but is more of a review with details of light customisation. I recently bought this Samick JZ 203. The reviews of this guitar were favourable and it certainly looks nice so I took a risk and bought one second hand from the USA. It is quite a nice guitar but does look like it was built to a budget. The finish is very thick and has a few flaws in it but on the plus side, the burst has been done nicely, and the darker cherry shading is quite transparent. The wood veneer is not as figured as some that I have seen on the net but is still attractive. The binding is nice and the fancy detail at the bottom of the fingerboard is a very nice touch but like the finish, it has obviously been done quickly so there are a few flaws. Some people have written that these samicks, especially the early ones like mine have solid tops, but I doubt this, and mine certainly has a plywood top with spruce veneer. The things I liked least were the pickguard, bridge and knobs.

As far as playing goes this guitar has an ok sound out of the box, but the tone controls didn't seem to do anything which didn't help. I took the electrics out and couldn't fathom what was going on! I think the guys in the factory just guessed at the wiring! Anyway, rewiring in a more conventional fashion and replacing the capacitors allowed the tone controls to have an effect, which was one step towards where i wanted to be.

I also didn't care for the bridge. It was some kind of black painted brown wood, maybe something like mahogany but it didn't seem very hard. I bought a tune-o-matic top and luckily had a nice rosewood base from another project with separate feet more like a Gibson L5 bridge. Because of the neck angle the bridge cannot be very high, and the feet of the bridge base needed to be shaved down as far as possible in order to get a reasonable action. After fitting the bridge, the sound difference to me was remarkable. I still don't know if it is the bridge or my imagination, but the acoustic and electric sound seemed better more distinctively hollow sounding like archtops usually sound, and with the tone turned down can get close to the Wes Montgomery sound I was looking for.

The frets on this guitar are ok, but a few are slightly lifted at the edges making them uneven. I leveled them as much as I dared but really I think it could do with about 10 of the frets being reseated or maybe even a fret job but it is playable.

The last things to change were really cosmetic. I changed the black plastic pickguard for a bound tortoiseshell effect one that I made in the style of a Gibson L5 pickguard. I believe it looks nicer and also having the guard resting on the pickup surrounds makes it much nicer to play with the thumb or fingers as the guard is nearer the strings. I also changed the knobs for top hat knobs with metal inserts just because I prefer them.

I really enjoy this guitar now, I think it is stylish and generally well made and equipped, and prefer it to an epiphone emperor that I had before, but would say that like most far eastern guitars which I believe offer great value for money, I wouldn't expect it to play perfectly out of the box - it needs a bit of work to make it fun to play.

I have recently got an L5 style tailpiece from a Washburn J6 guitar. I think it improves the appearance of the samick, and it is now a pretty good poor mans L5 copy. Superficially they are quite similar looking now!!

1943 Levin

This is a lovely old Levin parlour guitar. Unfortunately it had been repainted unsympathetically and the owner wanted it to be made as original as possible. As can be seen it was a bit of a mess. The back, sides, fingerboard (even the headstock) and neck were painted with some kind of tinted polyurethane floor varnish, and the top had been bursted using yellow and brown car spray paint!!! I was very lucky to find that under the paint the original varnish was intact. Getting the paint off was a challenge though. The varnish was quite easy to get off, but the paint was more tricky. I decided to scrape the bulk of the spray paint off and try and clean up the remnants with sandpaper.



The result was pleasantly surprising, but not really good enough. Luckily this guitar had very thin cellulose finish which is easier to repair than thicker more modern cellulose or polyester finishes. The various dings and chips were filled in with shellac and aniline dye stains until they were as inconspicuous as possible.


Then the fingerboard was planed, the guitar refretted, the bridge reglued, a couple of cracked braces repaired, and the whole instrument french polished. French polish is not as durable as cellulose but on an vintage instrument like this, it is a way of keeping it more original which I believe is preferable. The result is a nice looking but still vintage looking guitar!