Musima classical guitar, bulging belly underneath fretboard

[louislemas]

Last year I bought an old battered Musima guitar very cheaply, the guy I bought it from said it was made in the 1960s, so it's in surprisingly good condition. It is really nice to play and sounds great, but the body is bulging underneath the top of the fretboard, as you can see in the pictures. This causes the strings to buzz around this point. The previous owner 'solved' this problem by filing down frets 12 onwards, which means the frets below this play beautifully, but you now can't play beyond fret 11.

I was hoping to a attempt some kind of repair so that the full range can be played.

I've had two thoughts, but both come with potential problems:

1. Remove the frets that have been filed down and sand the fretboard down until it is nice and flat, before cutting the grooves deeper and adding new frets. However, I am concerned that I may have to take away too much wood so that the fretboard becomes too thin.
   
2. Or, try and reshape the body with clamps and steam, to remove the bulge. However, I am afraid that I may cause more harm to the body, as I have never attempted this before. Also, even if I manage to get it to the right shape, how long will it be until the belly returns?

I am reluctant to get it repaired professionally, because I don't feel like it's worth it.

I am currently leaning towards option 1, because it is easier and in the 9 months that I have had the guitar, I haven't noticed the bulge getting any worse, which makes me think it is 'set' in this position now.

Any ideas or other suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks

https://photos.app.goo.gl/W29baGOXrEpkuuvg2

[John Arnold]

I would split the difference, cut half of what you need off the fretboard, and reinstall lower frets. The upper frets do not need to be as tall as those near the nut.

[arie]

weird. what's going on on the inside of the box?

[louislemas]

I added some pictures I took inside the body, it seems the soundboard is still glued to the cross-brace, so the brace must have warped as well

[Ned Milburn]

Originally Posted by louislemas

I added some pictures I took inside the body, it seems the soundboard is still glued to the cross-brace, so the brace must have warped as well

Tough to tell exactly from the limited photos, but my guess is that the body is collapsing but the strong transverse brace is keeping that portion relatively straight.

Pull out the frets, plane the fingerboard somewhat, and then re-fret with tall frets to allow you to put a taper through the fret surface plane of up to 0.6mm difference from high to low as/if necessary.

[Truckjohn]

These are really interesting guitars historically, though they generally don't have much value.

The Musima brand was an East German "Soviet era" instrument. It was made in one of the towns in East Germany which had a long history of musical instrument making. In terms of Soviet era guitars made behind the iron curtain - it's about as good as a regular person could get.

But....

There - as in the USA in the same era - they were rebuilding everything after the destruction of almost an entire continent.... Unemployment was at ZERO and deman was ultra high for everything... But - unlike the USA - their population was relatively smaller for a giant land mass.... They didn't have enough workers to keep up with the demand for goods... Quality suffered as a result - and designs were often massively simplified for manufacturing.

As a result - they often had errors/mistakes as well as strange idiosynchrasies... A few Russian friends of mine marvel at the quality of musical instruments available in Grocery stores here in the US - as they claim they are far and away better than what they could get there from music stores... They said often a musical instrument was more like a kit there - you bought it and then you had to fix all the weird problems so you could play them...

All that is a long way around saying this:
It may well have been built that way from the start... The fact that previous owners filed down all the frets on the body is a clue....

Give it a good, careful inspection. If you don't see any damage - then consider whether it's worth modifying the guitar to add some fall away. Perhaps consider carefully pulling the frets and planing down/levelling the fretboard, and then re-fretting it...

Otherwise - leave it be and play the 1st 11 frets... .