Terz guitar

[Ginridge]

Hi Folks,

I just completed the restoration of this lovely Carl Fischer Terz guitar from (I assume) the turn of the century. Brazilian rosewood Back and sides, Spruce top. Roswood fingerboard.





I'm about to string it up for the first time and can't find any reference to the string gauges I need use. Since it's short scale, but tuned to a 3rd higher, I would assume I could use standard light gauge guitar strings tuned to the appropriate pitch. I did see a you tube post featuring a Martin Terz Guitar, but it was set up as a high string, a completely different animal.

Anyone have any experience with this? I appreciate any thoughts you might have.

[Jim Adwell]

I use light gauge guitar strings on my steel string terz. Works fine.

[Ginridge]

Thanks! That's what I'll try and let you know how it works.

[Jim Adwell]

What's the scale length on your guitar? That might make a difference.

[multidon]

I would treat a guitar that old from that era as gently as possible. It has no adjustable truss rod. The same way we advise folks with old bowl backs to use extra light strings, so would I use extra lights on that. Lights might be alright if you use standard guitar tuning instead of Terz tuning. For the record on the last size 5 Terz Martin made, the Marty Robbins signature model, Martin recommended custom lights but also recommended regular guitar tuning with a 21 1/2 inch scale. Remember however those have an adjustable truss rod. One thing you could do is go to Graham MacDonald's site and play around with his string tension calculator. That way you could see exactly what stress you are putting on the neck with various gauges.

[bigskygirl]

Here's my terz, Engelmann top, Koa back and sides. The luthier I bought it from suggested the following string gauges. It's a fun little guitar.

6 - .029w
5 - .022w
4 - .022w
3 - .013
2 - .010
1 - .011

[Ginridge]

Don, Thanks very much. Very good ideas. I'm with you on babying this. I just strung it up with Pearse light gauge Phosphor Bronze Acoustic strings (12-53). It sounds good, but feels a little tight, sounds punchy.......

OK, re-tuned to standard. Feels a bit slinky at this tension, but the sound is better, a bit honky though. Of course, this is the first time this has been strung up in God knows how long and it had some pretty major surgery so it will take some playing to open up sound wise. Intonation is better in standard too.

Jim the scale is 21 1/2.

I actually met Marty Robbins backstage about a year before he died. He had me hold that guitar of his for a couple minutes while he talked to someone. Didn't know what it was then but I remembered thinking I'd never seen such a small guitar.

[Ginridge]

Hey Bigskygirl, Very nice looking guitar! I appreciate the string gauges. I'll definitely try that out. I'm surprised at the double 22s and the 10 on the second string and 11 on the first. I have to assume with the heaviest string being a 29 you're not in standard tuning. What tuning are you playing in?

[Ginridge]

Hey Bigskygirl, Very nice looking guitar! I appreciate the string gauges. I'll definitely try that out. I'm surprised at the double 22s and the 10 on the second string and 11 on the first. I have to assume with the heaviest string being a 29 you're not in standard tuning. What tuning are you playing in?

[Ginridge]

Been playing it for the last 2 hrs. The tone is already opening up immensely. A very bright sound, heavy on the midrange punch, but loosing the honkiness. Excellent for percussive fingerpicking and Carter style flatpicking. Incredibly articulate.

[multidon]

Bigskygirl's string gauges don't make any sense to me. 5 and 4 should not be the same and 1should not be thicker than 2.

I did a little fiddling with the McDonald String Tension Calculator. Your John Pearce light strings have about 112 pounds of tension. A standard 25 1/2 inch guitar strung with mediums has 155 pounds by comparison. With Martin Extra Light strings on a 21 1/2 inch scale with standard tuning you have a much more reasonable 98 pounds of tension.

I used to have a size 5 Terz sized tenor guitar that I restored and have since moved on. It also had no truss rod and I wasworried about bow. I strung it in GDAE with octave mandolin strings and it had about 68 pounds of tension with 4 strings. It was fine and had no problems at that tension. Not sure about 98 pounds on yours but that is about the lightest acoustic set I know. Maybe your neck is steel reinforced? If you want to go even lighter you can always put together a custom set made up of singles. I would be nervous about leaving those lights on there too long.

[Jim Adwell]

With a 21 1/2" SL you'd be safer with extra-light strings. My terz is 20" SL, a little shorter than most.

[bigskygirl]

Hey Bigskygirl, Very nice looking guitar! I appreciate the string gauges. I'll definitely try that out. I'm surprised at the double 22s and the 10 on the second string and 11 on the first. I have to assume with the heaviest string being a 29 you're not in standard tuning. What tuning are you playing in?

Hi Ginridge, glad to hear you're enjoying your new guitar. I keep the terz tuned up a third so G, C, F, A#, D, G.....I think that's it....

I play out of A or E or will capo to get to chord shapes I know. I've never explored Terz chord shapes and.....I love Marty Robbins, so cool you got to meet him, I remember listening to him as a kid. The luthier I bought it from lived near the Martin guitar factory and this guitar is like a Martin Style 5 that Marty played.

Although I don't watch the show it was cool the Breaking Bad finale used the song. There are some great videos on YT of Marty, his guitar (he strums that thing like a ukulele), fringed suit, and.......mustache....ha

We discussed tuning it in standard but I get a lot of slack when I do, I just keep it in terz tuning. I found a couple of songs in Bb that work well. It is a very loud guitar and sounds great!

[multidon]

Bigskygirl could you please explain why your 1 string is heavier than your 2 and why your 4 and 5 strings are the same? Your string tensions can't possibly be even or consistent.

I plugged your data given your string gauges and tuning and the McDonald calculator came up with the following string tensions in pounds:

String 1, 19.73 string 2, 9.24 string 3, 9.26 string 4, 17.95 string 5, 10.8 string 6, 7.86. Total tension is 74.84.

Although your total tension is reasonable the string feel must be quite different from string to string. 1 and 4 probably feel about right but 2,3,and 5 probably feel mushy and 6 downright floppy.

I apologize in advance if you feel like I'm butting in. I assure you my intention is just to be helpful not just to you but everyone who may be following this thread.

[bigskygirl]

Bigskygirl could you please explain why your 1 string is heavier than your 2 and why your 4 and 5 strings are the same? Your string tensions can't possibly be even or consistent.

Hi Don, I'd have to talk with the luthier as to why he strings it that way. We played it and discussed it a lot when I bought it. It plays fine, I've had it several years now and it sounds good, has great intonation, and stays in tune.

The builder grew up near the Martin factory and tells stories of talking with the workers and dumpster diving to learn about the guitars. I'll give him a call, I like any excuse to go over to his shop and see what he's working on. Last time I was there he was working on a nice mahogany parlor guitar......

[multidon]

If it were mine I would want to tweak those gauges for improved feel. But if your luthier strung it that way I guess he has his reasons and if you enjoy it that's the important thing! If you do go to see him if you would be willing to share my data and get his explanation for his logic in stringing it that way I would be very curious to hear it. Always something good to learn from a luthier.

I bet that mahogany parlor is sweet!

[Ginridge]

Thanks all for the conversation. I too was confused by the odd string sizes and I appreciate the info, Bigskygirl. Don, thanks for the heads up. I had also played with the string gauge calculator but didn't appreciate how it compares to a standard guitar. Actually, I was surprised to see that the Pearse lights were fairly close to some brand's mediums. I'll get a hold of an extra light set and try those as well.

I'll also try to put together a set closer to Bigskygirl's configuration and see how it sounds tuned up the minor third. Bigskygirl, If you hear from your Luthier on the string gauge question, I'd love to know what he has to say.

The neck on this guitar is quite substantial relative to the instrument and does not appear to be steel re-enforced. It has the classic "C" profile of a 40's to 50's Gibson and while not as big as the "baseball bat" necks of some of those guars, is certainly more substantial than many of the old parlor guitars I've worked on over the years. It has an arched, rosewood fingerboard (12' radius) that I'm quite certain is original. The bracing is rather stout (ladder braced) and it doesn't seem to have any issues with the tension at this time, but I don't plan on taking an chances!

[bigskygirl]

Hi Don and Ginridge, I will talk with him. I don't really know much about the whole string/tension thing so it will be a chance to learn something new.

He and I talked about Nashville tuning as well, and as I was looking thru the notes he wrote for me (I wanted to make sure I hadn't transposed the gauges) I found that I also have a set of medium and lights he gave me to try. I think the mediums were for if I wanted to play in standard tuning.

I just got it out and played it a bit and the tension feels good, not floppy but that's to me. I haven't played much guitar recently so the strings felt pretty hard on my mandolin calloused fingertips.

The mahogany guitar is verrrrry nice indeed! It's all I can do to not bring it home with me, now I can blame it on you guys when my husband asks why I bought another guitar when all I do is play the mandolin.....he just doesn't understand!

[Paul Hostetter]

A guitar with a 21.5" scale is like a normal 25.5" guitar permanently capoed to the third fret. So you can use any typical guitar string set (lights or mediums) and tune them up a third and the guitar is safe and should sound and play well.

E A D G B E ⅓ ⤴ = G C F B♭D G

You don't need to use lighter gauges unless you plan to tune it higher than G C F B♭D G.

If you wanted to tune that short scale guitar to normal EADGBE pitches, you'd want to use heavier strings. I don't think they'd sound good though. It sort of defeats what the guitar is supposed to be.

[multidon]

Hello Paul!

I get what your saying, but do you think it makes any difference that this is an old instrument with no adjustable truss rod? Would neck bowing not be an issue even with mediums? Martin recommends a custom light set for the Marty Robbins and that is an instrument with a truss rod.

[Paul Hostetter]

Good questions.

1) the shorter the neck and the smaller the top, the less you have to worry about over-stressing either.

I would assume that the complete restoration of Ginridge's little item included truing and refretting the neck, in which case its prior state informed Ginridge of any flexibility issues. In any case, you can usually tell within minutes whether you're overdoing it in the string department.

As an adjunct consideration, any guitar from that era (never mind the pin bridge and so on) was most likely built with GUT strings in mind. But guitars then, as now, tend to be really overbuilt. Think of old Martins that were also built for gut strings but yet have endured decades with steel strings and have done more than OK. In Ginridgers case, I wouldn't flinch at using normal light (12-53) gauge strings.

2) Any factory maker like Martin would of course encourage a very light set on anything they themselves weren't very familiar with. Saves on warranty claims! I'm not acquainted with any Marty Robbins model, but Marty Robbins himself played a 5-18, and those pups were bombproof: the original "travel guitar" and so on. Department of Redundancy Department at Martin. I'm not even sure he really played them, but he had one on an album cover. I fixed one once that had been used as a canoe paddle in a movie. Tough little guys.

Most "terz" guitars are tough little guys.

[multidon]

Yep they made a Marty Robbins that was basically a gussied up 5-18. The labels were signed by his son Ronnie since he had already passed on when they came out with it. They recommended it be tuned standard even with the custom lights but based on your info I'm sure it could be a true Terz.

[Ginridge]

So far, over-stressing doesn't seem to be an issue and I think I know what to look for in that regard (OK, I HOPE I know what to look for!). Intonation, however, is another matter. When I originally put strings on this, I did as an earlier posting suggested and used the light strings tuned up the minor third. Intonation was a big issue then even though I had measured out the bridge placement quite carefully (the bridge/saddle combo may be a 16th high or so too). When I went back to standard tuning, the intonation got much better.

The neck and frets were in excellent condition and I'm not too sure that they this hadn't had a neck re-set before I got it. There was a telltale drop of glue squeeze out at the very end of the fretboard and the heel shows a couple extremely tiny chips at the joint. If the neck was re-set, it was very well done. I'm pretty good at detecting earlier work and this is so well done I just can't be sure. The frets looked extremely clean with virtually no wear. Even though the guitar was quite dirty, the fingerboard is absolutely clean. The frets also seem quite a bit larger than I'd seen in similar era guitars. I am also surprised that this has an radiased fingerboard (12') as most guitars of that era had flat but I've looked very carefully and I'd be willing to bet that the fingerboard and finish on the neck are original and have not been separated.

I just took a closer look at the frets and have to say, I do think this has had a refret. Again, excellent workmanship. By comparison, the nut that was with the guitar was clearly a replacement and of poor workmanship.



I'm going to try going with a slightly lighter set of strings to see how that affects tone and playability. I've got about 4 hrs of solid playing on this guitar so far and the tone is developing very nicely; loud, with strong midrange but with surprising tonal color for it's size.

[bigskygirl]

Here's my terz, Engelmann top, Koa back and sides. The luthier I bought it from suggested the following string gauges. It's a fun little guitar.

6 - .029w
5 - .022w
4 - .022w
3 - .013
2 - .010
1 - .011

Hi Ginridge, I was over at my luthiers shop this week and we discussed the string gauges, the above is for if I'd like to use Nashville tuning. Other than that he said just use a normal set of med or med/lights. As far as tension the guitar is built to take the Terz tuning and should not be a problem.

Oh yeah, I was over there ordering an octave mandolin from him, should have it by fall....

[msrvfx]

Was the Carl Fischer Terz built as the original Terz guitars, or as a copy of the Martins? The original Terz were all gut strings, with Nylgut equivalents. Martins was a steel string. If the Carl Fischer Terz was originally a gut string instrument your would not want to put steels on it or your going to damage the instrument quickly.

Mark
www.roberts-guitars.com