1965 Framus Elektrona restauration

Bringing your older offset back to life.
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Pacafeliz
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1965 Framus Elektrona restauration

Post by Pacafeliz » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:14 pm

Well i got the Framus Elektrona today. Got 'er cheap, cuz i knew it was a project... but it turned out to be more than i expected; it arrived with a cracked headstock.

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Now... before i take it to the tech, who'd surely suggest to have the fretboard removed etc., would it be "smart" to try to fix it myself with superglue? I mean, bend it open a bit more and just pour it in? I mean, worst case scenario, it breaks of completely... :wtf:
Is that just stupid irresponsible or not? :blush:

Pics tomorrow.

BTW, the neck feels DELICIOUS and maaaan i'd like for it to be a guitar to last!
Thnx,
Pat.

PS: found out that according to the serial number, this was made in September of 1965! :o
Last edited by Pacafeliz on Sun Jan 08, 2017 2:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
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cbrown
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Re: Framus headstock repair - SuperGlue?

Post by cbrown » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:22 pm

I think superglue may be too brittle to give a durable repair. If you could lay your hands on a suitable syringe with a long and thin needle, you may be able to use that to inject proper wood glue into the crack while holding it open a bit.
Superglue's so easy to make a mess with too, whereas wood glue will tidy up easily.

Obviously the best thing is to do it the difficult/expensive/right way. But I doubt you'd make it any worse.

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Re: Framus headstock repair - SuperGlue?

Post by zhivago » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:41 pm

I wouldn't do it.

If you mess it up (and since you haven't done this before there is a high chance of it happening), it will be a pain for the tech to then clean the superglue off to repair it correctly...for the new glue to bind correctly the surface would have to be cleaned completely.

Take it to the tech, this is routine work for a competent guy and it shouldn't cost lots to do :)
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Re: Framus Elektrona headstock repair - SuperGlue? PICS

Post by Pacafeliz » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:57 pm

...so you're telling ME to NOT be THAT guy...?! :whistle:

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:squint:
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Re: Framus Elektrona headstock repair - SuperGlue? PICS

Post by zhivago » Tue Jan 03, 2017 2:37 pm

Pacafeliz wrote:...so you're telling ME to NOT be THAT guy...?!

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heheh! :D Oh dear!!! :o :D
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Re: Framus Elektrona headstock repair - SuperGlue? PICS

Post by frelonvert » Tue Jan 03, 2017 2:56 pm

Well, I had the same problem with a Framus Fret Jet. Same kind of neck construction.
3 pieces: botom of the heel, the neck and the headstock... exactly where your cracks are.
I had to remove the fretboard and unglue the 3 parts of the neck with steam and reglue everything.

If you don't want to remove the fretboard may be you can try the heat and force steam ( wet towel and an iron) at the cracks to melt the old glue. Then clamp hard the parts and let the old glue cool down (sorry for my bad English). I am not 100% sure that it will work but it might.
Superglue is useless, I believe.
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Re: Framus Elektrona headstock repair - SuperGlue? PICS

Post by b bender » Tue Jan 03, 2017 3:33 pm

Well you seem be fishing out some fine German guitars......I have really nice television bass that has same problem but has been repaired with a wood screw. He was a similar twat... so I have a bigger problem to sort. But yours sure is a fine looker and well worth a decent repair good luck
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Re: Framus Elektrona headstock repair - SuperGlue? PICS

Post by mgeek » Wed Jan 04, 2017 3:30 am

Yeah, superglue is a HUUUGE nope.

Would be very possible to lightly bend open the crack and smear a little woodglue in there before clamping. I'm betting it actually holds up and stays in tune as is, right?

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Re: Framus Elektrona headstock repair - SuperGlue? PICS

Post by raphaël » Thu Jan 05, 2017 1:00 am

Wow Pat!!
The guitar looks awesome!!!
The Hofner too ;)
The yellowed headstock is :?

I had the very same crack on the heel, on my Framus bass...I took it to the luthier and he just glued it with woodglue.
As for the crack at the headstock you should try with woodglue too, and see how it behave before spending a lot of money on a big repair...

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Re: Framus Elektrona headstock repair - SuperGlue? PICS

Post by Pacafeliz » Sun Jan 08, 2017 2:08 am

ok so yesterday i cleaned the shit outta this guitar... it must've been laying around for years!
as i said, the neck pup works without probs.
now i attached the battery and the middle pickup kinda sounds too, but with some sorta fuzz or something. the guitar has yet another circuitboard below the vibrato... is it that? the slider switches for the individual pup volumes are very stiff.
the 4th switch (a bit apart from the others) seems to control the circuit with the organ-tone (?) volume with the spring and the other 3 knobs, which then all work as volume, somehow.

tis gonna be a tough one to fix. but as for now, the most important thing is to fix the neck. i've stung her up and tuned normally, and it's still solid, holding it. and it feels oh so nice.

also need a proper bridge and vibrato bar.

pics later!
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Re: Framus Elektrona headstock repair - SuperGlue? PICS

Post by PorkyPrimeCut » Mon Jan 09, 2017 7:45 am

Pacafeliz wrote: ...now i attached the battery and the middle pickup kinda sounds too, but with some sorta fuzz or something. the guitar has yet another circuitboard below the vibrato... is it that?...
Apparently these guitars had a separate pre-amp. Could that be what the PCB is?
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Re: Framus Elektrona headstock repair - SuperGlue? PICS

Post by RandyRandom » Tue Jan 10, 2017 12:20 am

Pacafeliz wrote:...so you're telling ME to NOT be THAT guy...?!

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yikes! :wtf:
:D Gotta love them Offsets :D

Any other austrians around here?

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Re: 1965 Framus Elektrona restauration

Post by NelsonInstruments » Fri Jan 20, 2017 9:01 pm

Some of the issues with breaks like those can be
1) Has someone tried to fix them previously? If so then it can be one heck of a task to try and get the surfaces clean and properly mated for a solid and seamless repair.

2) Are the breaks recent or old? If those breaks (or in this case they might be de-laminations?) are old and the wood inside the break has dried out it might be shrunk a bit making it problematic to get a tight fit. If those aren't actual "breaks" but are de-laminations then you'll most likely need to have the parts taken off to get any old glue cleaned off before putting them back together. Unless it was made with hot hide glue you'll find that old glue doesn't reactivate, and glue doesn't bond to glue very well.

The other potential pitfall with that headstock area is that injecting glue might get into the truss rod cavity. Not having knowledge of what sort of system they used on those, you don't want to risk getting glue in there and binding up the truss rod.

I'd suggest having a competent luthier look it over and get a quote.

The other option would be to have a new neck made to the dimensions of that old one. I have a friend that has an old Harmony rocket and wanted a fender neck with a regular width taper. So a Warmoth neck was modified to work with the guitar.

That might be a good way to go anyway so you don't invest a chunk of money into fixing that neck only to risk the repair not holding, or boogering up the neck afterwards.

just my two cents

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Re: 1965 Framus Elektrona restauration

Post by frelonvert » Sat Jan 21, 2017 12:03 am

I have several time sent email at Framus vintage or warwick with questions about my old Framus.
And I always had a rapid and strait answer. They are very pro, so if you have any question, they would try to help.
Framus vintage:
http://www.framus-vintage.de/modules/co ... 4664&cl=EN
Warwick, framus vintage parts:
http://shop.warwick.de/?&lang=en&modul= ... 56126555A9
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Re: 1965 Framus Elektrona restauration

Post by mgeek » Sat Jan 21, 2017 3:39 am

NelsonInstruments wrote: The other option would be to have a new neck made to the dimensions of that old one. I have a friend that has an old Harmony rocket and wanted a fender neck with a regular width taper. So a Warmoth neck was modified to work with the guitar.

That might be a good way to go anyway so you don't invest a chunk of money into fixing that neck only to risk the repair not holding, or boogering up the neck afterwards.
Respectfully but VV strongly disagree.

I mean, the thing is holding up 'as is' and as Framus mass produced shitloads of guitars it wouldn't take too much effort to confirm the type of glue used to make these joints in the first place. If as I suspect, it's hide glue, it'd be simple to just run a little water in there, heat it up a bit, clamp and be done.

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