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!