Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm curious....

With their fiberglass bodies, do Ovations need neck resets like their wooden cousins? There's many comments about the difficulty of maintaining an Ovation, but do their necks have much reason to ever come off?

Thanks!

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Peter Havriluk

I have a 28 year old folklore that has not been reset. The action is about 3.5 mm now. There has been no adjustments made in that time. So it is changing.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Yes we see them that need neck resets but usually they have been trashed by the owner before that. Other things go wrong with them first such as a separation of the top to the rim and then God help ya because you cannot manipulate an Ov*tion rim like we do all of the it with wooden rims. Bridges lift too amazingly even with epoxied bridges.

The electronics also fail commonly and they are proprietary so no parts available. Since they were often purchased for the electronics that usually knocks them out of service prior to neck reset time as well.

We won't work on them, long walk on a short pier and most professional Luthiers who we know won't work on them either unless they have to go ugly early for billable work.

And for this forum there is nothing of value in working on an Ov*tion and arguably the processes, glues and materials are so not applicable to how we repair 99.9% of the instruments out here that Ov*tions are not even of value as a learning experience. If it's a neck reset learning experience get an old Harmony Sovereign they are built much like a Martin, dovetail HHG, etc and what you learn will translate to real.... guitars and not bed pans with a long handle on them.

PS: Sorry John for dissing Ov*tions they are the nightmare of professional guitar repair people and we often wish them on others when we don't like someone.

Thanks, good thing I only had a curiosity question. No Ovations in sight.

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Peter Havriluk