Look what the cat dragged in! Mucho mojo!

[Rich]

We have to try to get this playing good, without doing a proper headstock repair- I'd LOVE to tackle the headstock, but the owner doesn't want to spend the $$$

[Rich]

Interesting rat nest in there.. cool preamp, though. ;D



Pair of DiMarzio pickups



Truth be told, this guitar is a 70's rock machine.. I like it more than I should! ;D

[Rich]

Well, I did some slight blending and shaping at the abominable repair, as the glue was slopped right where my thumb wants to rest in the first position.. This is a poor repair, but not the worst one I've seen. My heart tells me to strip all the crap off there, fix it right, and do a nice semi opaque refin of the neck.. It is entirely possible to do a nice job, but the repair that has been done did more damage than the actual break. I reshaped the nut, as it was buried in glue, removed the excess glue from the fingerboard edges and face, and got the neck feeling much better. My customer is a good guy, I'm his son's guitar teacher, but the guitar belongs to his friend. He asked me to get it playing, and told me his friend didn't want to put much into the guitar. I guess the repair has held thus far, but the sloppy glue job really took its toll on the playability. This must have been hot hide glue, and it's reinforced with cloth. Now it's old, brittle, and rancid. this guitar reeks...

Anyhow, I cleaned and polished the frets and fretboard, reworked the nut, trimmed back some of the glue slop, cleaned, buffed, and rubbed the finish, and retouched the worst of the finish damage at the volute end of the neck. I still plan on doing a mild fret level and crown, but thought I would open up that big truss rod cover, to make sure everything is as straight as possible before leveling the frets. Here's what I found, about 30 minutes ago...




Man.. I think I had better give the guy a call.. Drag City. Some people's kids.. I swear....

[martyb1]

Thats going to make it a bit tough to adjust the truss rod

Even in that condition isn't that guitar worth a few $$$$
You would think it would be to his benefit to repair it

[Rich]

Yep, I think it's still pretty valuable. I did everything I could with it, and it's really cool.. plays good, feels better. Sounds very aggressive... Every time I pick it up, I start playing crazy loud stuff I haven't played in years.. It's fun!

[Rich]

I did a quick setup on it, and dragged it to the studio last night. My students went all gaa-gaa on me, as I taught with it all evening. Truth be told, I still like it alot. There is just about the right amount of relief in the neck, and I strung it up with extra light strings- .008's- something I haven't done for a while. The neck is slimmer than I'm used to, and the pickups are super hot. Made for a pretty rowdy night.. The kids never heard me play that way before- high gain and delay. Bach is probably spinning in his grave, but it was fun. I kinda hate to give it back.. ~

[Rich]

Well, I returned it to my student's dad last night, and he was shocked.. He told me he was going to play it for a month or so, and tell his friend that I'm still working on it-

[zombywoof]

I came close to picking up a 1959 ES 330 with a repaired headstock last year. Someone had covered the repair with what looked like black electricians tape and then coated that with some kinda stuff which dried hard as a rock. Gave the whole guitar an odd Quasimodo kinda appearance. Guitar cost a heck of alot less than one in good condition would run but the problem was we could not get through all this stuff to see how good the original repair was.

[Rich]

You wouldn't believe some of the things I've seen.. An old Gibson SG came into a shop with a 16 penny nail driven into the neck partway, then bent over through a 3" corner bracket that was glued/screwed/and taped to the headstock. That was the worst one I've come across.. The bracket ran up the back of the neck to between the 2nd and 3rd fret, and was about 1/8" thick steel.. I didn't take that one on, although I probably would now. Since then, I've had lots of practice doing headstock repairs.

[mojocaster]

Holy smokes, that's some horryfingly appalling work