NGD- The long way around

JohnW63

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What surprises the heck out of me is that he found Rayk to be less inquisitive than you...

True. I mean it started with him giving me the wrong string height units of measure. In mm instead of 64th, when he MEANT 64ths. In all my messages I always had some sort of preamble that was like " Sorry to ask so many questions... ". I think were he went wrong is stating he could "cleat" a dent, and I was then asking, " What is wrong with it that you would need to cleat it ? I thought that was only for splits in the wood ? " ..... I think catching him, the self expressed " luthier in training " in a statement that made no sense get defensive.
 

Rayk

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In the heat of negotiation Ray may have reverted to his native tongue.
A lot of folks have fallen to that onslaught.

At the same time there seems to be many folks who take offense to Ray speak and often miss inturprete my intentions and or at the same time I just say the wrong thing at the wrong time without realizing I said anything wrong in the first place , now how wrong is that !? 😊
 

twocorgis

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When the fretboard on my Martin D18DC developed a hump at the 14th fret, it was time for a fret job and fretboard planing, and I elected to do a neck reset while it was apart because the saddle was starting to get low. $600 later, everything was fine. In all fairness to the guitar, it's built on that "hairy edge" of lightness/durability (that's the way David Crosby wanted it), but that's also what makes it the best sounding square shoulder dreadnought I've ever played.

Hopefully, the solution to your situation won't be so expensive.
 

Westerly Wood

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At the same time there seems to be many folks who take offense to Ray speak and often miss inturprete my intentions and or at the same time I just say the wrong thing at the wrong time without realizing I said anything wrong in the first place , now how wrong is that !? ��

i prefer Rayspeak to nearly any other form of speak on the LTG. i however, can often translate it.
 

adorshki

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i prefer Rayspeak to nearly any other form of speak on the LTG. i however, can often translate it.
Yes, and he's become much more Americanized since his early posts.
I think a new phone helped.
Awyway, if I didn't love him I wouldn't shove him in front of the bus.
 

Rayk

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Oh geez Y'all make me'a blush ! But ya need to quit if the evil ones find out you all like me they might plan a attack ! I can't have that on my conscience .
 

JohnW63

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Update:

The hump on this CO-2 was slight, but enough to get a bit of low string buzz if I played around the 12th fret or higher. I finally got the time and desire to take it apart at the same time. I took pictures, that I may post later. In short, it seemed like something was allowing the neck to be tightened up in a way that had the fretboard extension to need to rise slightly as it set on the top. I didn't see anything obvious. We're only talking a mm or two. There are four Allen screws that hold the neck in place. One near the end of the fretboard, two side by side much closer to the neck block, and one going through the block into the heal of the neck. Getting the Allen wrench inserted into the screws, over and over as I tried things, did take patience. Eventually, by the proper order of tightening and not torquing any one screw down until all were snug, improved things. I think I would have to be looking for it to now see the hump. I can play up the fretboard now. I think a mm or two taller saddle would allow me to play louder , that high up and not buzz. No buzzing with a capo on the 7th fret, etc. If it stays solid. after some serious, I'll be a happy camper.
 

adorshki

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Update:

The hump on this CO-2 was slight, but enough to get a bit of low string buzz if I played around the 12th fret or higher. I finally got the time and desire to take it apart at the same time. I took pictures, that I may post later. In short, it seemed like something was allowing the neck to be tightened up in a way that had the fretboard extension to need to rise slightly as it set on the top. I didn't see anything obvious. We're only talking a mm or two. There are four Allen screws that hold the neck in place. One near the end of the fretboard, two side by side much closer to the neck block, and one going through the block into the heal of the neck. Getting the Allen wrench inserted into the screws, over and over as I tried things, did take patience. Eventually, by the proper order of tightening and not torquing any one screw down until all were snug, improved things. I think I would have to be looking for it to now see the hump. I can play up the fretboard now. I think a mm or two taller saddle would allow me to play louder , that high up and not buzz. No buzzing with a capo on the 7th fret, etc. If it stays solid. after some serious, I'll be a happy camper.

Sweet!
Wonder if all the tweaking is why they dropped the Patent application for that whole neck/spider bracing thing.
RayK mentioned slightly different issues on his CV but still centered around the fretboard extension and still resulted in a not inconsiderable amount of time invested.
It occurs to me that maybe seasonal humidity shifts caused a lot more tweaking to be required than aniticipated and made it a bit of a maintenance headache?
Or maybe it was just too costly in time to set 'em up properly when building 'em, compared to the pretty consistently predictable time it took to just set a neck the old fashioned way, and pick a bridge to match the angle?
 

JohnW63

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After having it off and measuring things, I can see how you would need to have it CNC'd pretty tight to not have enough play to allow it to be tightened down improperly. If it was a dove-tail joint and fit snugly, then the screws wouldn't have the ability to pull the fretboard / neck out of alignment. This one is just a slotted from the top to the bottom of the neck joint attachment. When in the slot, you can move the neck a touch in a rocking neck up / neck down direction. Not lots, but enough that you could have it out of place by a few mm. The idea of a easy to remove bolt on neck is a good one. I just don't know if Guild had the CNC tools to pull it off without growing pains. In my guitars case, if it had shipped with a little higher action, I would have never noticed. My old Ovation has a more pronounced hump and plays fine. I never knew it had one, until I had a guitar to compare it with.

The " fix the problem " part of my brain wanted to find a way with thin shims or something to make it NOT be able to tighten down improperly. I just couldn't figure it out in the time I had or the measuring tools in my drawer.
 

adorshki

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After having it off and measuring things, I can see how you would need to have it CNC'd pretty tight to not have enough play to allow it to be tightened down improperly. If it was a dove-tail joint and fit snugly, then the screws wouldn't have the ability to pull the fretboard / neck out of alignment. This one is just a slotted from the top to the bottom of the neck joint attachment. When in the slot, you can move the neck a touch in a rocking neck up / neck down direction. Not lots, but enough that you could have it out of place by a few mm. The idea of a easy to remove bolt on neck is a good one. I just don't know if Guild had the CNC tools to pull it off without growing pains.
IF I understood correctly, Guild didn't have access to CNC until New Hartford.
It was highly touted at the time of introduction of the new guitars.
 

richardp69

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I give ya'll a lot of credit for the drive and initiative you have to fix things yourself. Personally, I take the coward's way out since I am basically incompetent when it comes to fixing anything. I take it to someone who knows what they're doing and pay them for their expertise. That nearly always works out well.
 

JohnW63

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Richard,

Chalk it up to being cheap. In this case it was 4 screws and high hopes of finding something. I found no " Ah-HA ! " things, but just put it back together, one screw at a time to see what it did to the alignment. First go was no better. Second go worked. My partial Scottish brain was happy.
 

D30Man

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Congrats sir! There is one here in Granbury on CL for $550.. Hmmmmm..
 

JohnW63

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I've always like cedar and if I can get rosewood along the way, so much the better. If the one in Granbury is on good shape, I would take a shot on it. If you can get a shot of the neck to body section, so much the better.
 
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