Sp8ctre and RVA's Guitar Adventure

RVA

RVA

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As some of you know, Sp8ctre decided to entrust me with his beautiful rosewood Tele so I could play in my lab. For better or worse, we have decided to detail our journey, which started yesterday.
 
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The guitar arrived intact. But you all know me, so that did not last long. I determined that it needed a fret level. this guitar has the truss rod adjustment on the heel and requires you to remove the neck to access.

However, it became apparent that this neck did not have sufficient truss rod adjustment to get the neck straight. This is the relief with the truss rod fully tightened

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The neck was very dry, so I applied some Howard's feed-n-wax. Since this neck needs to be pushed straight, we do not need any cracking

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Ray, did you play it all when it arrived? I'm curious what you think about those PUP's.

They are Bill Lawrence MicroCoils.
 
Dan E. has a possible fix. Loosen the TR, the clamp it straight, then tighten TR and release clamps (see 1 min to 3:30).


I whipped up some clamp supports

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And locked it down

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Sp8ctre said:
Ray, did you play it all when it arrived? I'm curious what you think about those PUP's.
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yes, the pups were nice. I am a Bill Lawrence fan! However, I could not give them my true opinion because the pup height to strings was not what it should be due to the issues with the neck
 
I woke up this morning and tried Dan E.'s trick, but the relief was still at .0185 from the fret board to the top of a slotted straight edge

I counseled with DonP, who is always a huge help and then with Spectre.

We decided that the neck needs serious intervention to ever be right. The plan - pull the frets, plane the neck straight and then re-fret the neck. If all goes well, we can slap the neck on and move to a set up. If not...well, let's not go there now!
 
I'm staying optimistic that you'll be able to tackle this and wrestle it to conformity!

Once it's back together I'd love your opinion on the PUP's. I have a set of Twang Kings that I like if the MicroCoils don't work out.
 
My opinion.....this is awesome! Great idea.

RVA, your banging out a fantastic project yet again, and do great work as well. And of course, DonP is a wealth of knowledge. So, this guitar is in good hands, that's for sure. Sp8ctre, you must be excited.

Looking forward to the updates.
 
Bocc69 said:
My opinion.....this is awesome! Great idea.

RVA, your banging out a fantastic project yet again, and do great work as well. And of course, DonP is a wealth of knowledge. So, this guitar is in good hands, that's for sure. Sp8ctre, you must be excited.

Looking forward to the updates.
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I am! Had this guitar for quite some time and have never been able to play it...
 
So the neck has (to much ) relief and you cant get rid of it ??? maybe you could of clamped it with a hair of a reverse bow then tighten the truss rod but heck you might snap it in half lol. I got faith in ya there Luthier RVA. Sp8ctre it is in good hands.hell id even let him do it if it was mine.
 
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JohnnyGoo said:
So the neck has (to much ) relief and you cant get rid of it ??? maybe you could of clamped it with a hair of a reverse bow then tighten the truss rod but heck you might snap it in half lol. I got faith in ya there Luthier RVA. Sp8ctre it is in good hands.hell id even let him do it if it was mine.
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I tried that brother - see above
 
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