1930's Kay Baritone Archtop Guitar - Acoustic Electric - Wider Fretboard - Hard 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, 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 couple of small cracks starting on the top, one just behind the pick guard and one below the right side f-hole. They had not gone all the way through but I cleated them anyway - both stable now. There is a screw in the neckjoint, through the strap button to hold a neck reset in place . -- 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 - 3/32" 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 hardshell archtop case.

I've posted a sample on SoundCloud under ClaytonAudio

soundcloud.com/claytonaudio/kay-baritone-test2

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