This Wonderful short scale guitar was one of the very first made by the Asturias dream team which included Matano, Hiruomi and Kodaira.
It's a true concert guitar, you can tell by the details and the amount of work that has gone into it.
It has a very high-grade solid cedar top which is thicker than the later models, It has beautiful and high-quality rosewood back and sides. The neck has been reinforced with a beautiful strip of solid rosewood to prevent the neck from bending.
It has 5 layers of purfling and bindings around and at the back of the guitar. It's a beautiful guitar.
It is a short scale guitar. The string length from the bridge to the nut is 63cm as opposed to the 65cm length of a standard full-size guitar. Together with the reduced nut width of 49mm instead of 52mm makes this guitar a very comfortable instrument to play.
It is well suited for people who have smaller hands, ladies, and children, but also for ensembles and recording work thanks to its ease to play, and the less boomy and fast attach of a smaller body guitar.
Despite its smaller body size, it is very loud with the full frequency response of full-size guitars. The basses are tighter and the trebles are clearer.
I have enhanced the guitar by tuning the soundboard to E and B making it more resonant, louder and more musical.
Luthier's background
Eich Kodaira started making guitars in the 1960s. Kodaira together with Hiroumi Yamaguchi and Masaru Matano (all master luthiers) set up the Asturias guitar label.
Asturias guitars have always been regarded as very high-grade concert guitars.
Kodaira continued to make guitars under his name while working for Asturias. Kodaira guitars and Asturias guitars were virtually identical, even the labels were the same. The labels read: Kodaira Asturias.
The Kodaira workshop is still operational today with only 3 builders: Kodaira's son and two other family members.
Specifications:
Top: High-Grade Solid Cedar
Back and Sides: Rosewood
Neck: Mahogany
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Frets: Mirror polished steel
Tuning Machines: smooth golden tuners
Scale: 63cm
Nut width: 49mm
String action is approximately 3.50mm under E6 and 3.00 mm under E1 with plenty of extra room on the saddle.