After drilling, glueing and screwing the top piece back on, planing the sides to match with a spokeshave and filling the spare tuner holes, I had a headstock more in proportion to that of a 6-string.Īt this point I bolted the neck and body together so that I could appreciate how the project was progressing. First cut was slightly below the area with the Egmond name, the other cut an inch below that. No problem, out with the tenon saw and I removed approximately an inch from the headstock. The slightly too large headstock with tuners. Being made for 12 tuners, with just 6 it looked a little over-the-top. I placed each of the new tuners in their respective holes in order to get a ‘feel’ of proportions etc. įinally, with the back stripped, I turned my attention to the headstock. Naturally this entailed even more work as there is no soundhole in the back, hence more paint.

Ĭompared to the neck, removing the old paint from the front was taking an eternity – and two evenings later, the front was stripped.įeeling quite pleased with myself, I decided that the sunburst on the back had seen better days, so began the monumental task of scraping that. I’d no idea how old this sticker was but it had to stay no matter what – mojo and all that.ĭespite several large pieces of the sticker already missing, I spent an inordinate amount of time carefully scraping around the edges. To me, this offered untold quantities of Mojo to the guitar and felt that to remove it, would possibly exorcise any musical spirits that may be present. At some point in the instruments hazy past, someone had seen fit to place an old John Players cigarette sticker on the lower right bout. Here though was one particular obstacle I wished to overcome at all cost.

Moving onto the body, it was screwdriver time again and thus began the lengthy (and laborious) job of removing the crumbly finish from the front of the body. The ancient Egmond name on the headstock. I was eager not to remove all sense of history and identity from the guitar, so I carefully kept what was remaining of the ‘Egmond’ name on the headstock. Several hours of scraping later, I had a rather nice bare wood finish. Working away slowly, very lightly and just a minute area at a time, the powdery ‘crust’ came away surprisingly easily. With the guitar broken down into manageable ‘chunks’, next task was to remove that horrendous ‘Sunburst’ paint finish on the headstock and neck – over time, the paint had shrunk and crazed into thousands of tiny little rectangles, so I set to work with a blunt, flat tipped screwdriver. The guitar dismantled and ready for stripping. One bolt later and the guitar was in two pieces. Egmond guitars were unusual in that their acoustics had un-boltable necks. So as is my style and approach, I took the guitar to the workshop and set to it.įirst job was to remove all the hardware and then the neck, which in this case was very, very simple. For some time I was drawn to this picture and eventually began to look again at the Egmond 12 String.Ĭould I take this discarded, forgotten and unloved beast and turn it into something I would cherish and enjoy playing?īeing left handed, it is exceptionally difficult to find guitars that offer that ‘certain something’ – self modifying often being the only recourse. That was until I discovered the music of The White Stripes and specifically, Jack White’s old battered and torn Kay Acoustic with a Humbucker pickup stuck in the front.

After that, the guitar was hung on the wall and left to gather dust for the next couple of years. To cut a long story short, the guitar sounded great but for some reason, it seemed to lack a certain something that I couldn’t put my finger on. On getting it home and after restringing the guitar left-handed (for that is what I am) and a quick tune, I sat down to have a play. Imagine my surprise when enquiring, that the price was just £40. It turned out to be a 1956 Egmond (Dutch firm, now bust) 12 String acoustic, 17 fret neck, 12th fret at the body. There, sat in the window, was something that instantly caught my eye, a guitar. Several years ago, I visited a charity shop in Kendal, UK. With this post, there will probably be many of you fellow guitar enthusiasts out there, that will think I’ve completely lost the plot?

Egmond acoustic guitar review