Official Luthiers Forum!

First of all, I'd like to confess and apologize in advance if, as a player, I'm breaking taboo by posting here.  I have not been able to find the answer to my question on any of the FAQ type places otherwise I wouldn't be bothering you. 

Recently my eye fell upon a "junk" guitar at a flea market and on a whim picked it up and plugged it in to the portable amp the guy had there.  The tone was incredible clear, round and piano-like on the bass strings and with a bit of adjustment (only a bit-one functional knob) a screaming sustain, and despite the dilapidated state of it, decided to risk the thirty dollars and bought it.

Upon closer inspection at home I started noticing all the problems.  To make a long story short(er at least) it will need a new neck.  The existing neck is about as thick as a baseball bat and bowed.  The action is horrible and the strings are about an inch and half off the body of the guitar. There is no truss rodd, and as far as I can tell there never has been.  The most important question is essentially can a truss rod-less neck be replaced with a better quality neck with a truss rod and half the thickness?  Assuming the answer is yes, would the cost of such an operation be just as much as buying a new guitar?  How much, if at all, would it affect the tone of the guitar? 

I live in Poland, where gear is expensive and skilled labor is relatively cheap.  I'm not above investing some cash into creating a unique instrument if I can get the tone and playability I want.  But I would like to know before etting involved if there is no hope of success.

Thanks and again if you feel I have invaded your professionalvenue I apologize.  If not, I welcome any advice or tips, as I am not a native Polish speaker and will have trouble communicating the issues to the local luthiers (who incidentally are quite good)

Greg N.

Krakow, Poland

     

Dobre my friend,
do you have any pictures of the actual guitar? I think that would help a lot, to get some good advice.

Nice to see another european here!

Dont be surprised to learn that the baseball bat neck and inch and a half action are WHY the guitar has bell like tone and rings forever ... a new neck will completely change the physics of how that guitar works.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

If the guitar has a bolt on neck it is quite possible that you can get a replacement bolt on neck that has a truss rod and it will work fine.  It the neck is a bolt on there will be a metal plate and 3-4 screws on the back of the body of the guitar where the neck joins the guitar.

There are a number of people in Europe on eBay that sell replacement necks and such for electric guitars so shipping will not be expensive.

If the neck is not bolted on it is still possible to replace the neck but it will cost more in labor so you have to weigh the cost against what the potential end result will be to see if it is worth it.

While it is unplayable as is, if it ends up being too expensive to repair you could still use it for slide guitar.

The neck is a bolt on(three bolts).  Is un-warping it possible?  I don't mind the feel of it, just kind of instinctively assumed it was bad. 

The guitar (which resembles a fender jaguar in body) needs a new bridge as well-this could presumably help with the action. The nameless single-coil neck pickup is supported by a mysterious white block of some unknown substance (plastic I think).  It looks as if this were done to raise the pickup closer to the strings.  There is no bridge pick-up (I was thinking of a Gretsch filter-tron) and the wiring is almost completely useless. 

I'll put up pictures when I get the chance.

Thanks for your help.   

I'm glad someone else suggested ebay for a replacement neck. I was going to suggest that as there are many neck replacements on there that should be fairly inexpensive to get to you.

The only thing I can caution you about is to take plenty of measurments to make sure the neck you get will be the same scale length as the one you are replacing.

There are methods to straighten a neck without a truss rod. It is a touchy process and you take a big chance on blistering the finish as it requires heat... really precise heat. Believe it or not, I had a similar guitar in my younger years and I straightened the neck by suspending it over a toaster and adding weight on the neck. It melted the plastic pearl dots out of the fingerboard, but I got the neck to straighten out. I would not recommend this method to anyone. In my case, the guitar was given to me and I had nothing in it, so there was nothing to lose by trying to do it myself. I later filled the holes left from the melted dots with a white epoxy and sanded them smooth again. The plastic dots should tip you off to the real value of the guitar. After years of learning to play the thing, I sold it at a flea market for a whopping $15.

 

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Reguards,

Ken H