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I posted this over on the UMGF but really, it's likely to be of more interest here. Sorry if I'm just copy and pasting. I hope you all enjoy as I truly think these prewar Washburn's are some fine instruments able to hold their own with their American brethren of the same time period.

I have the back off of a nice '35 Washburn Model 5257 (low 400's serial number) and as the construction is often a mystery, I thought I'd take the time to document this example to shed some light on these often great sounding and delicately built instruments.

- The use of laminate materials is commonly suggested for the back and sides of the Regal built instruments, with the rarer Gibson built examples being the ones made of solid materials. While I imagine that is very likely in the lower tier models, I've had the back off and/or needed to address the binding of several of the higher level models and have only seen solid woods. This example would be Regal built and has utilized a nice set of IRW for the back and sides.

Sides

Back


- The bracing is lightly constructed, as is the bridgeplate. The brace ends are feathered and tucked, which is to say, as an example; that there is no notch in the X-brace to accommodate the finger-braces feathering. This results in, in this particular example; the X-brace being or requiring some slight gap filling with hide-glue on the finger-brace side for a distance of about 5-10mm to each side of the finger-brace.




- The X-brace, and tone-bars are straight-braced. Along with the Finger-braces, they measure roughly 7mm at their widest point (gluing surface) to around 5mm at their apex of the "cathedral peak". The height of these braces is roughly 10.5mm
- The Soundhole Braces are wider and shorter: approximately 12mm in width and 2mm in height.
- The Upper Transverse Brace is more or less an even thickness of roughly 9.5mm throughout its roughly 14.5mm height
- The bridgeplate is 30mm wide and 2mm thick. It is "feather-tucked" into the X-brace.


I have handled a number of these over the years and consider them to be an exceptional value for a prewar era instrument. The necks have heft to them, so not for everyone but they are a very good sounding and playing instrument.

Should anyone be interested in any other specs or have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to accommodate the request.

Doc

I've got a soft spot for Washburn stuff, too. Enough people love Gibson and Martin already.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

That's very cool thank you for the information.

The bridge plate being 2mm I find interesting. In my own work I've noticed that the thinner and smaller bridge plate guitars are preferable to my ears overall than ones with bigger and thicker plates. That's just me though. I find it interesting too that the plate is tucked like a Martin style plate of the same era.

What angle is the main x brace? And how far back is the cross of the two braces from the soundhole edge?

Hi Dan,

I think I should clarify the "tucked" part with having an emphasis on "feather"-tucked, which I tried to show in the photos.
I believe the following would be the order of operations for bracing the instrument(s)
~ It's clear they laid out the bracing pattern with a pencil first
~ Afterwards, I would surmise that first the Finger-braces, Soundhole-braces and Bridgeplate were glued in with their respective ends being feathered.
~ Lastly, the X-brace and Upper-transverse-brace were glued in on-top of the feathered ends of the aforementioned braces. If the ends of the feathered braces weren't feathered quite enough, then the small gap would appear as the X-brace and Upper-transverse-braces were not notched to accept the other braces such as Martin did.

The workmanship is good enough...not as well executed as Martin of the day, but much more so than most every Gibson I've ever seen of the era. In the Fretboard Journal video of the great Kenny Smith playing a couple of '37 Washburn model 5244 instruments (along with a '37 D-18) he sums up the sound of the Washburn with "it's a Washburn". I think it's fair to say this is simply solid craftsmanship for the Washburn of the era. The 5244's that Kenny plays in that video are truly superb sounding examples and I have one of their sister instruments, the rather rare '37 Shade-top Model 5246.

To answer your question in regard to the X-brace: it is a fairly wide 100° angle set about 1.5" back of the soundhole edge.

Doc

Thanks for the info. 1.5 is fairly far back for a wide angle like that but that is very interesting. To my ears if the ones Kenny is playing in the video you linked you can kind of hear how they seem to have a slightly more "narrow" and boxy tone (not in a bad way) and to my ears it comes across as a natural compression of sorts.

I also noticed there's no popsicle (not sure of that term) brace under the fingerboard extension. They may not have caught up to Martin in that regard by that time.

Hi Dan,

This is a 14-fret instrument so at the time, I don't think the Martin's 14-fretters had the popsicle-brace. Admittedly, I'm always thinking of the popsicle in relation to Martin 12-fret instruments or 14-fret dreadnoughts. The OM would have been the first 14-fretted instrument and at the time (when it first appeared), it didn't have the popsicle-brace. In 1939, they added the popsicle to the dreadnoughts but I don't recall if they added the popsicle to the OM at the same time or earlier. I guess I need to pull out the old reference books again as I don't have a smaller (than dreadnought) bodied Martin in the shop from pre '39 at present.

I should note the scale length is 25.4" on this instrument - 14-frets clear of the body.

Doc