Sometimes you take a bet and you win.

Bringing your older offset back to life.
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Steadyriot.
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Sometimes you take a bet and you win.

Post by Steadyriot. » Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:41 am

Sometimes you don't.

I came across a cool looking Hofner 173 neck on Dutch Craigslist. I've always liked the look of these necks with the double inlay.
Here's a pic of a Hofner 173 from Reverb:
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See the inlays? Cool right?! 8)

Anyway, description said it was in a bad state but the pictures weren't really clear so I'd figure I'd take a gamble and bought it for 20 bucks + shipping.
And this is what I got:
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Looks pretty good right? Okay maybe some Kahler locking nut action on the headstock, the frets are old and worn but that's all to be expected from a neck that's over 50 years old.

You already know what's coming next; not a lot of good things:

There's a neck break near the headstock:
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(I'll come back on that plug looking thing there later)

The trussrod is coming out of the back of the neck (hidden by the black painted skunk-stripe):
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Look at those lumps!
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And the side dots are finishing nails:
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Fun fact about these nails: they're some kind of copper alloy and they're pretty much disintegrated. I tried pulling them with my fret pullers and the heads just sheared off of most of them. Fun!

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Counting the holes in the headstock I came out at about 28. Not counting the filled ones (with black epoxy?!), the tuner holes themselves and the locking nut ones.
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I could've also bought the body, but that was in even worse of a state. Don't even want to talk about that one..

Now, judging by the Kahler holes and the flattened neck profile I guess this neck had a hard life somewhere around the 80's. People did crazy stuff back then. The flattening of the neck is also what made the trussrod pop trough probably. You can kinda see it here:
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Now I firmly believe we can fix this! It's in a pretty bad shape but I've seen guys fix worse than this so I have good faith (plus I love a challenge!). There's still some potential left in this neck, and I'd like to brush up my "Luthing skills" so this'll be fun!
I have already thought out a potential fix and I've started a damage assessment on the neck which you'll see in the next post, but I wouldn't mind anyone chiming in on any potential fixes. The neck also had a little backbow so it's currently in clamps to see if I can get it straightened before we move on to the bigger stuff.

I can't promise this will move along quickly, life's been busy but I'll keep you guys updated.
"If someone duetted with a Bald Eagle, they could rule the Country charts from here to eternity." ~shadowplay

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Squirrel
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Re: Sometimes you take a bet and you win.

Post by Squirrel » Thu Mar 15, 2018 10:12 am

I'd route it out for a Fender-style skunk stripe. I almost bought a '60s Gretsch Jet Firebird a while back with the same long crack running down the middle of the neck, and that was going to be my plan for it.

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mgeek
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Re: Sometimes you take a bet and you win.

Post by mgeek » Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:47 pm

Watching this with interest...If it was me I'd pull the fretboard and bin the rest!

Are you planning to build up the back of the neck with extra wood?

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