{"id":4610,"date":"2021-11-28T22:56:23","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T22:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=4610"},"modified":"2024-02-08T09:13:44","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T09:13:44","slug":"music-workshop-hofner-congress-neck-fix-pt-1-starting-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=4610","title":{"rendered":"MUSiC\/WORKSHOP: Hofner Congress neck fix, Pt 1. Starting work \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Here she is, looking fine. Don\u2019t want to trash her!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the scariest things on a project like my Hofner Congress is simply getting started. As long as I put it off, I have a nice looking if purely ornamental instrument. But for some reason I\u2019ve been feeling compelled to dive in. And today I finally took the plunge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d already removed the strings, the day I got it back home. But with plans to put a dual-action truss-Ros in the neck, and evidence of previous neck reset attempts, I figured I had to get started sooner or later. I decided sooner would be now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tiny screw on the back, going into the heel. Note gaps, both horizontal and vertical!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
This much larger screw was buried under some weird filler material. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rather amazingly, after removing the pick guard plate, and taking off a small screw on the back, or to be more precise the very \u2018base\u2019 of the heel, and another much larger one going through the heel into a neck support block in the body (I had to gouge out a load of filler), the neck itself came off surprisingly easily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This neck joint came apart really easily.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This suggests to me that a neck reset was very definitely needed. I masked off and cleaned up all the surfaces inside the joint. I also discovered a year, 1968 (the year Teresa was born), written in pencil on the heel of the neck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Removing the neck revealed this pencilled year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is very intriguing, as the guitar\u2019s serial number, and the personal testimony of its previous owner, who bought it new \u2018over sixty years ago\u2019, date the guitar itself to 1958. That\u2019s a full decade earlier. It could be that what I read a a \u20186\u2019 is actually a 5. But it sure look more likes 6 than a five to my eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scraping crud off the joint makes the year, 1968, clearer, somewhat surprisingly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Does this possibly mean this instrument got a neck reset or replacement when it was just ten years old? I\u2019ll have to see if I\u2019ve still got the previous owner\u2019s contact details, and ask him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is further evidence, in addition to the pencilled 1968, such as the fact that the heel of the neck seemed to be about a millimetre or so shy of actually sitting flush, as can be seen in the pic about five images above. And on the back of the guitar, in the corresponding location, was a thick layer of dried goop. Glue, intended to fill the void?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I intend to fine tune this joint, and re-assemble and re-set it properly flush. This previous bodge will have added, along with the concave neck bend, to action issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Neck joint separated, surfaces cleaned. Looks okay!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I felt the neck removal went surprisingly well. Much better and quicker and easier than I\u2019d expected. I then removed nut, and decided I\u2019d try and get the fretboard off as well. I kind of wish I hadn\u2019t attempted the latter. This phase really didn\u2019t<\/em> go well. At all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d seen numerous YouTubers using an iron, running it over the frets to soften the glue that holds the fretboard in place. I then tried to get a painter\u2019s palette knife into the seam between neck and fretboard. However, there was no gap in this joint, anywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I also removed this plastic headstock veneer.*<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

* The Hofner logo and three dots are formed by off white material that filled indentations on the back of the plastic headstock veneer. These remained attached to the headstock, whilst the plastic itself came off relatively easily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, like an idiot, I waded in to the fretboard removal anyway. And for my pains the finger-board began to separate from the neck, splitting in numerous places as it did so. Nor were things opening up neatly along the seam of the glue joint. Aaargh!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end I wound up using a sharp chisel, to simply hack away. I had hoped, as many YouTubers seem to manage, to pry the fretboard off intact, in one nice clean go. So I could reinstall it later. But I sir-ee, that simply wasn\u2019t happening!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finally stopped for the night, before going too far, and trashing the neck irretrievably. I\u2019ll hopefully remove the rest of the fretboard tomorrow or Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wood on the fretboard looks and feels a bit like some timber I\u2019ve got from old tables and chairs, which I was told is rosewood. It\u2019s hard, fine grained, and brittle. It isn\u2019t coming away along the junction with the neck. So however it was shaped and glued, it was shaped very well and glued down too good to allow easy removal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps I needed to apply more heat, via the iron, or more steam? But I didn\u2019t want to affect the overall neck and\/or fretboard integrity with too much moisture. After a period of repeatedly using the iron on the frets, and a few of the latter simply falling out, I removed them all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fret removal, and abandoning any attempt to save the fretboard intact, made removing the neck – using the chisel – a lot easier. I only wish, quite apart from wishing it had come away easily and intact, that I\u2019d taken measurements of fret positions before embarking on such a destructive course. But as I hadn\u2019t intended to destroy the fretboard, I hadn\u2019t deemed that necessary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aargh! Precisely the kind of butchery I desperately wanted to avoid. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Look at the mess I\u2019m making! And sadly there\u2019s lots of little bits, chips and scratches, getting caused to both neck and, alas, even the body, as I work. I\u2019ve forced myself into the situation of having to either buy or fabricate my own fretboard now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But given how easily the fret wire came out – I could literally remove it with my fingernails! – and the neck itself came away from the body, the neck itself and the joint were in bad shape anyway. And let\u2019s not forget the major underlying reason for all this fiddling; the concave bowing of the neck, as it was when I bought the guitar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How she looks now. Neck sans fretboard; messily applied choc\u2019 spread!?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The neck as it was also had a zero fret, which, for some reason, I really dislike. So I may modify this guitar such that when I\u2019m done, it not only has an adjustable truss-rod installed, but it also doesn\u2019t<\/em> have the zero-fret. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I need to order a truss-rod, and either ditto for a new fretboard, or make my own from scratch. I\u2019d rather buy one for now. So that fret spacing (and perhaps even fitting?) are already done. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the scariest things on a project like my Hofner Congress is simply getting started. As long as I put it off, I have a nice looking if purely ornamental instrument. But for some reason I\u2019ve been feeling compelled to dive in. And today I finally took the plunge. I\u2019d already removed the strings, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MUSiC\/WORKSHOP: Hofner Congress neck fix, Pt 1. Starting work \u2026”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-1cm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4610"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4610"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11468,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4610\/revisions\/11468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}