Anyone have initials in their truss rod cutouts?

[Roman]

My Corona D-55 has initials . . .

 

[chazmo]

D-55 (2004)
Written "5-7 NAT" under lacquer.

I wonder what that means? Maybe it's a date and someone's initials from Corona?

 

[workedinwesterly]

Hello Chazmo,
We can only speak for Westerly guitars, the initials were put there by the neck fitter (the guy whose job it was to fit and glue necks on all day long). It had nothing to do with pride, but was a way to tell who put the neck on in case there was an issue with the fit. Then they knew whose a** to chew out.

 

[chazmo]

Hehehe... Thanks, WiW! I doubt there was much chewing out going on over that.

(seems to me a smart fitter would put someone else's initials in there )

 

[GardMan]

Hey, Cap!

Is there any handwriting in the body of your guitar? I found some on the heel block of my F512, as below. It says 1 F512, I think.

How about you, JH? (folks, JH's and my F512 were started on the same day in 2006 -- brothers in assembly!)

That's an interesting tail/heel block... looks like it's two pieces, with the grains in cross directions. Is that a 12 string thing, an F-XX thing, or an age thing? All the tail blocks in my 6-strings are one piece... I would think two pieces with crossed grains would be stronger!
Dave

 

[chazmo]

Dave, my 1971 F50R does not have a 2-piece heel block. I don't know why they did that, by the way. Hey, JHCrawLaw, do you have the same type of heel block in your F512?

I'll check out my 1978 G312 tonight, guys.

 

[workedinwesterly]

oh yea, plenty of chewing out...neck fitting isn't easy. it's best to weed out the bad ones as soon as possible...save the bottom line. After all, it was just a factory.

On the tail block issue from Gardman...The tail block has a small thin strip of wood glued cross-grain to it, in a effort to prevent splitting when the endpin is inserted.

 

[JHCrawLaw]

I could not find a mirror that would allow me to look at the entire heel block without removing strings, but I'll check it out next time I change them. I did notice that the serial number is handwritten on the heel block (didn't need a mirror for that).

Good old "CP" certainly did not get his a** chewed for my 512!

 

[Graham]

For personal identification I put stickers with my information on my face .
They're not easy to find unless you know where to look.

I pictured you as a sticker kinda guy. :wink:

 

[chazmo]

Now there's a man with a drinking problem!

 

[workedinwesterly]

" Good old "CP" certainly did not get his a** chewed for my 512! "

Actually, it's worse than that. Good old CP is out of a job !

 

[JHCrawLaw]

Sad but very true. At any rate, he was very much on his game back in May '06.

 

[chazmo]

+1 on that, JH!

 

[chazmo]

... I'll check out my 1978 G312 tonight, guys.

Neither my '71 F50R nor my '78 G312 have two-piece heel blocks.

WiW, are you saying that folks used the cross-grain strip in Westerly? Did you guys remove it after the endpin was inserted?

 

[danerectal]

Did you guys remove it after the endpin was inserted?

I would kind of doubt it since it was glued to it. I'd guess that would be hard to remove from within a guitar body.

 

[BobsterMan]

Nuthin' written on my boys, except the mod/ser numbers in the usual place.

I can writin' when it's wrote, but I can't read written when it's write... Popeye

 

[taabru45]

Well, I looked at my Corona, CPM000064, and guess what, writing under the cover, will try to make it out later, no glasses on when I noticed it. Maybe a tradition for everyone, or was it just an inner circle...I wonder, the guitar is great, no shame in having it signed. :wink: Steffan

 

[workedinwesterly]

the intials in the rod cover pocket started in westerly sometime in the mid to late 80's.

adding the cross-grained strip to the heel block was started sometime in the 90's when the use of the pressed-in end pin jacks caused some blocks to crack ( those blocks are all short-grain). It wasn't used on all models, mostly the deeper ones that had pickups as standard equipment.
We eventually switched over to the threaded end-pin jacks from Fishman that didn't stress the block.
Also, these things were hand-built and required skill. Often there's exceptions to all the rules.

 

[cjd-player]

For personal identification I put stickers with my information on my face .
They're not easy to find unless you know where to look.

I pictured you as a sticker kinda guy. :wink:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Just saw this. I'm a bit behind on my reading.

Actually, the stickers are somewaht less conspicuous, INSIDE the guitar.