Attempt to fix a classic guitar
This
is by far the worst guitar Iīve ever had. There were no markings of brand or
manufacturer but clearly it represented the cheapest type of guitar
building - even the fretboard was plywood painted black!
I was not able to tune the guitar properly. After some measurements I
found out that the nut was almost ten millimeters too far from the
first fret. So I had to shorten the fretboard. The plastic nut was
another issue - it was too wide for this neck.
Tuners were crappy, of course.
Strings
were about three miles high from the fretboard. I just couldnīt get
them low enough, not even after lowering the bridge. You can see the
reason from this picture.
The soundboard was not straight anymore. The bridge was also warped,
one end was hanging loose. Maybe thatīs why treble strings did sound so
muffled.
A neck reset was necessary, something I had never done before to an acoustic guitar. This should be interesting!
To
remove the neck I used a hairdryer, a hot air blower, boiling water and
thin blades. Finally I had to use a clamp with a makeshift jig to pull
it free from the dovetail. Whole operation took some time but luckily I didnīt break anything.
For some reason I decided to sand of the finish. There was just a thin layer of lacquer and it came off with little effort.
I made a shim under the fretboard to fill the cap caused by the neck
reset. Shims were also used to set the neck angle during glueing. The
dovetail joint was poorly made, there was at least three
millimeters between neck and body. I used a long screw inside the body
to tighten the joint.
The
bridge was useless so I made a new one. Unfortunately after all that
work the guitar didnīt sound any better, damn! Maybe this thing just
wasnīt ment to be played.
So I just gave up. The end result is a wall piece with a fake campfire guitar look.
Well, I paid just three euros for the thing. Despite all work I didnīt get a playable guitar. But I think I did learn a lot!
ĐJukka Korppi 2015
