I found this old early 70's made in Japan vintage acoustic with a bolt on neck in a pawn shop @ a great price. The action on this baby was so high from a severe ( and I mean severe) upward neck bow and plastic saddle that sat way to high, it literally made the guitar unplayable. Besides all that, most of the tuners wouldn't turn and some were sloppy loose. Some of the frets had flats all the way across them like someone attempted to lower them and never crowned them. Before I purchased it, I did a quick check of the truss rod and it would barely move in the direction to straighten the neck so I knew it wasn't broke so I bought it.
Took it home and started the overhaul by taking the neck off then re-hydrating the body and fretboard. I cleaned the rust out of the truss nut and lubed it with lithium grease and worked that back and forth until I got the neck to straighten out. I did a complete fret re-level and crown on the neck and cleaned up the Rosewood board. I took all the tuners off and stripped them down to the gears, cleaned them and did a complete overhaul on them. I had a spare bone comp. saddle I sanded down for the adjustable bridge to replace the non-comp. plastic one. There was no need to replace the original nut because of the zero fret that's used as the nut.
After putting it back together and a few rounds of saddle sanding and neck adjusting, I was able to get the action down from 3/8" to a little under 5/64" with no fret buzzing. The tuners operate smoothly now and the guitar holds tune.
There was a lot wrong with this guitar but I knew I could save it. Took some time to get it right. As far as the structure and actual condition of the neck and body, the guitar is in excellent condition and being playable know makes it even better. It turned out to be a great playing and fantastic sounding guitar. Having this done elsewhere would have been very expensive. It has all original hardware, tags w/ serial and screws.
Here's a few pics of it:
Took it home and started the overhaul by taking the neck off then re-hydrating the body and fretboard. I cleaned the rust out of the truss nut and lubed it with lithium grease and worked that back and forth until I got the neck to straighten out. I did a complete fret re-level and crown on the neck and cleaned up the Rosewood board. I took all the tuners off and stripped them down to the gears, cleaned them and did a complete overhaul on them. I had a spare bone comp. saddle I sanded down for the adjustable bridge to replace the non-comp. plastic one. There was no need to replace the original nut because of the zero fret that's used as the nut.
After putting it back together and a few rounds of saddle sanding and neck adjusting, I was able to get the action down from 3/8" to a little under 5/64" with no fret buzzing. The tuners operate smoothly now and the guitar holds tune.
There was a lot wrong with this guitar but I knew I could save it. Took some time to get it right. As far as the structure and actual condition of the neck and body, the guitar is in excellent condition and being playable know makes it even better. It turned out to be a great playing and fantastic sounding guitar. Having this done elsewhere would have been very expensive. It has all original hardware, tags w/ serial and screws.
Here's a few pics of it:
