Carlos 438 70s/80s - Gloss Natural

For sale is this vintage and rare Carlos 438 Acoustic Guitar.

Condition to me?

I bought this guitar with its neck loose and coming away. Most likely due to humidity and a poorly glued joint originally. Other than that, the body and headstock were in really good condition.

What have I done to it?

After removing the strings, I noticed the neck had a lot of back bow. So I straightened the neck first before moving on to the neck join itself.

I applied glue to the loose neck join and then clamped it back into place. Having cleaned up the glue squeeze out, I left the neck clamped for a couple of days.

After I’d removed the clamps from the neck, I noticed some light bellying behind the bridge so I steamed and clamped the body for a couple of days.

Once the clamps were off and the belly reduced, I set about cleaning and tidying the neck join.

With everything complete I out a new set of strings on, polished the body and it was complete.

How does it sound

As is typical of these guitars, they sound bright, crisp and loud. No doubt a decent wood selection in between the Mahogany laminate back and sides. It’s nicely balanced and would benefit from having a pickup added.

What to know about this guitar?

Whilst the neck is now solid and the belly is reduced, the neck join has moved since its manufacture. Therefore the action sits at 3mm at the 12th fret. This is fine for strummers and cowboy pickers. I wouldn’t recommend it to this who want to play high up the fretboard. At some point it’ll need a neck reset, but it should be good for years yet.

History

Carlos guitars were an early player in the Korea manufacturing market. Starting out in the 70s, they produced some great early instruments. As was typical, increasing competition, rising costs and poor quality control saw them exit the guitar world in the late 80s, early 90s.