Old strange Vintage Guitar jolana galaxis

[kitarmen]

Hello, i have an very old guitar made in czechslovakia by a company jolana (galaxis). this guitar has no nut and bridge. its in a verry bad condition. i will eventualy restore her, but i need some infos. sorry for my english. please help!

1. see image below. the nut is not there where usualy. it has a litle distance between the firt fret ao lets better say zero fret. i am wondering does this guitar have an usable scale lenght?

2. the second problem is the bridge. there is no way i can buy a replacement bridge. this bridge is not screwed in the guitar, its just placed under the strings so it can move around. do you have any sugjestions for an alternative bridge or hardtail?

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Old strange Vintage Guitar jolana galaxis

From the looks of it, any standard Fender-spec replacement nut will work.

As for the bridge, that's going to take some detective work on your part:
Once you get the nut installed, measure from the center of the nut to the center of the wire at the 12th fret, then multiply that number by 2. That will tell you the scale length of the neck, and will also tell you where to center the bridge on the body. The existing tailpiece/vibrato can be used as a string anchor once you get a bridge properly mounted.

As for what type of bridge, that will be difficult without knowing the neck angle. A traditional Fender-style hardtail bridge might not have enough height adjustment range to raise the strings high enough off the frets to avoid dead notes or fretting out, or a Gibson-style tuneomatic bridge may be too high for playable action, even at its lowest point. It could take a modified version of an archtop bridge, which was typically a folded metal piece on a wooden base, or it may take some specifically-designed type of bridge. It's difficult to say without seeing it in person.