The Electra Forums

Huzzah Jay!

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"This is the way that pop ends, Not with a BANG but with a box set whose fourth disc you never get around to playing” - Simon Reynolds

"My guitar wants to kill your Mama" - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention

OK - I see exactly what's going on with the neck. The glue in back of the heal has swelled up. I should hopefully be able to reheat it and clamp it back into shape. If not - the neck will have to be re-set. Should be totally do-able (crosses fingers and toes). Sometimes the glue kind of turns to powder when it's heated and lets go completely - that's not the worst thing in the world in this case.

Awesome, good for you Jead, sounds like you got a great score!!

A little steam seemed to help a bit. Heat looks like it's closed the gap noticeably. I'm kind of thinking someone may have tried a repair with tite-bond or a similar glue that tends to expand somewhat. Hopefully it holds after I remove the clamps. I'll post a couple pictures later tonight.

Today's stuff. Here's the precarious looking setup which is actually stable. I'll leave the clamps on for a couple days and hope for the best. I've snugged but not cranked the truss rod. I used an iron for a bit of steam action but got sort of scared off pretty quickly - it throws off an awful lot of heat quickly. I had a damp washcloth over the heel at the time and it did soften things up a bit. I really didn't want to chance messing up the finish so I quit that pretty quickly and moved to the clamps. I wanted gravity to help drop the neck into place so I stuck everything on the angle you see in the picture. It can't hurt. I carefully directed a 100 watt incancescent and a 500 watt halogen on the heel joint - again careful not to get it too hot. I actually wrapped some of the guitar loosely in foil to deflect heat. As the neck got warmer I was able to tighten the clamps more and more - heard the wood complaining a bit which is good. Once it was as warm as I wanted it I put 2 clamps on the heel joint. As of now all clamped up, the neck is flat . Whether it holds and whether the neck angle is good/ok I won't know until I unclamp it in a couple days. If this doesn't work, I have a couple other tricks up my sleeve. Right now I wanted to try the "less is more" approach and be fairly firm but gentle.

Well the contraption straightened the neck but as I suspected the neck angle was wrong. I could feel the heel protruding about 1/32 from the back. That might not sound a lot but trust me - it is. The saddle had been lowered all the way to the body and I know that ain't right. The guitar was playable with high but passable action but even so, definitely not right. So I figured I might be able to heat him up again and slip the neck into the proper angle. Light clamp pressure went onto the heel, the 100w incandescent for 45 minutes, more clamp pressure, another 45 minutes of light/heat and the neck freed up perfectly so I could glue and reset it. This is not for the faint of heart as you sort of only get one shot at it. Once you've glued up, you're committed. If it's wrong you have to take off the neck again. Long story short - Elvin is MUY happy. As of now the saddle is where it belongs, the truss rod is just snug and the action is as good as my other semi's. I will tweak it a bit more but right now I'm feeling pretty pleased with my bad self. If it all holds together - which I think it will - I feel this is as good as a pro job. One exception - I didn't have hide glue available so good old Elmers, which I didn't want to use, got called on. I had the benefit of 2 other Electra semis to study for the right angle as well. So back to adjusting and hopefully the final re-assembly. Pictures will be forthcoming.

The guitar plays great and sounds fantastic. Not the cleanest, brightest hardware in the world by any stretch but the pickups sure sound great. I think the headstock is what it is. I don't really want to lose the serial # by stripping and I'm not sure if I should just re-poly/paint what needs it. Suggestions? The shmootz on the back of the heel was there when I got it as were the chips all around the neck pocket. I think the schmootz is glue and someone had attempted a re-set before I did. The previous owner is looking around for the original tuners and will send them to me for a fee if he finds them. So the chrome has some pitting but still cleaned up pretty well. The neck pup cover started shedding chrome during clean up so I left it where it is now. There's a couple minor chips out of the binding but otherwise the guitar is in very nice shape. I had the action down to a freakishly low 3/64 to the top of the 12th fret with no buzzing or fret out - have since raised it a bit and intonated. I'd mark this one as saved and ready for action.

Jead, I think its uber cool that you saved this one, the front looks unscathed from the pics, congratulations big time. So you've got like $350 plus labor into it? I'd call that a great deal.

Don't know what to tell you about the headstock, a shame to be sure, but not the worst looking headstock I've ever seen either. Do you think that separation is stable?

I'm assuming you tried to buff the gunk off the heal when you were working on it, it's not that bad, and its in a secluded spot. Is it too soon to ask if you're gonna be keeping it or selling it?

My hats off to you for a job that I would never have had the nerve to tackle, I'm Jealous! Cheers, Mike.

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"My hats off to you for a job that I would never have had the nerve to tackle, I'm Jealous! Cheers, Mike."

I'm with Mike here 100%....Jead, you da man. I was sad when I first saw pics of that guitar. I'm very happy about the outcome...as I know you are.

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JD's Electras

Thanks fellas - The headstock wood is stable. The finish is not - at least in back. I think I'll be looking into a stain for the bare wood and then top coating with poly. I also plan to research whether heating the finish might get it to kind of lay down and re-bond. I know heat is a good way to strip these really tough finishes but again, I'm worried about melting the binding etc. All in not including labor I'm at just under $360 which is quite nice. My take on the whole thing was that these are just too uncommon to risk them getting scrapped or parted out. If I couldn't fix it, I'd get it to someone who could. Having seen it through this far, I'll figure a way to complete the job. I'm patting myself on the back a bit here because I'm so pleased.

I don't know if it's the stop tail or what but this guitar is really delivering the goods. I need to do a real good a/b with the trapeze to compare. I'd say I got lucky that the damge was nowhere near as severe as I thought it would be and even though my heart skipped a beat or two with the neck sort of dangling off, the re-set went better than I could have hoped. I'm not sure yet whether I'll keep it or sell it Mike. It looks awful nice with its other Antique Brown buddies!

Fantastic job and save Jead! Whatever you do,I wouldn't try to heat that finish to get it to lay down-it will lift even worse,I know from experience! You could put a little ca under the edges(especially by the serial number)to hold it down,feather the edges and try to stain to match,then poly. The Elmers didn't swell or creep,huh? I've always used hide glue so I could re-steam if I screw up(frequently).
Kudos,you da man!

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"If it ain't been in the pawnshop,it can't play the blues" R.L.Burnside

And to answer the OP... YES, there is and YES HE CAN!!

Really nice work jead. Count me in with the "man would that make me nervous" crowd.

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...throw me a frickin' bone here, people...

Great job on the fix. Steaming, heating & clamping - I am afraid I will screw up when I am doing something simple like spraying contact cleaner. I know that fix was out of my league.

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"This is the way that pop ends, Not with a BANG but with a box set whose fourth disc you never get around to playing” - Simon Reynolds

"My guitar wants to kill your Mama" - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention

Thinking heat was just silly.
I've already done exactly what you said with the ca and stain. It won't be perfect but it will save everything that's left. I've used Elmer's a lot for carpentry/woodworking projects and I was worried that the joint would want to slide around before it set. I was kind of in a situation where I had to work fast so lots of glue got squeezed in and then brushed to cover as much of the surface as I could get. I knew I had to sqeeze as much of the glue out as I could and still hold it in position so a real tight clamp initially just to squeeze out the glue and then some creative and fast clamping - the one handed clamps came in real handy there as I was wiping up glue, holding the neck, hyperventilating and trying to set more clamps all at once.

So - No it didn't creep and I don't think it swelled. My theory is that the glue went on when the wood was still pretty warm and as the wood cooled the glue got absorbed or pulled back into the wood. I'm thinking that heel joint is bulletproof now.

One of these days I'll get up the nerve to try re-fretting.
Some of the shmootz on back of the heal is coming off too so that's looking better.

Thanks for all the kind words and encouragement!

definitely an awesome save...

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