1930's Kay Baritone Archtop Guitar - B Tuning - Acoustic Electric - X Wide Fretboard - Period Case

    Grand auditorium sized archtop guitar, made by Kay - circa 1936. -- Strung as a baritone now because of it's 26" scale and incredibly wide neck - the fingerboard is 2 1/2" inches wide at the bottom - the nut is 1 3/4".

    Solid spruce top - maple back and sides - rosewood fretboard. -- The neck has a mild V profile.

    All new hardware including vintage style Grover Sta-Tite tuners - translucent acrylic pickguard, and a suspended humbucker with volume and tone controls - 7.2K impedance.

    This guitar has tremendous projection - natural reverb - loads of overtones - and a sustain that just goes on and on at the end of a note. -- It was made for heavy gauge strings that could carry the rhythm for an orchestra - with horns blaring - woodwinds and more strings playing.

    It has a repaired side crack up near the neck - cleated and stable now - and numerous places where the finish has chipped or flaked off - several of these spots were "touched up" by a red magic marker at one point - not me. I've posted several close up pics of the finish issues - all cosmetic.

   There is a screw in the neckjoint to hold a neck reset in place - covered with a veneer cap and putty. -- I've leveled and polished the frets and got the action down for big banging blues. The string height at the 12th fret is set at 1/8" bass side - just under that treble side and it plays well there up and down the fingerboard.  

     This Kay is rare - made before 1938 - before Kluson tuners - so it is a contemporary to the Venetian and Wood Resonator archtops from this time and well suited for a baritone - something Leadbelly could appreciate.

    String gauges    :  70-54-47-30-20-14
    Tuning is in B    :    B-E-A-D-F#-B

Ships in a period chipboard case.

I've posted a sample on SoundCloud under ClaytonAudio

soundcloud.com/kay-aragon-baritone-test2

Length          -    41"
Scale        -          26"
Lower Bout   -    15 3/4"
Upper Bout   -    11 1/4"
Depth           -     3 15/16"
Nut          -          1 3/4"
Weight     -          5 lbs