Tony Lewis Skypilot Guitar Repair
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks Dave!
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I like the burning approach………However, problem solving can be fun? So, If your using an easy out that means your turning counter clock wise on a double action and that means that you are trying to force relief. So, did you try to turn it the other way to confirm it’s bottomed out, because if it’s bottomed then you should be able to go the other way towards upbowing. If the rod nut isn’t stripped or the rod broken, then put it in neutral, and go for heating the neck. Cheap and easy with heat lamp. Clamp it down well past relief wanted (say 20 thou), then heat that neck up to about 250 for an hour, and then let sit for a few days. Before unclamping, hopefully truss rod will adjust to tightness to maintain relief you’ve introduced. This all if the truss rod can be turned towards up bow. Good training as you are gonna run into this a lot.
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Oh gosh, and forgot to mention…..DO NOT USE a ball end hex wrench……The groove where the hex rod meets the ball end is considerably thinner than the dia. of the hex rod, especially on a 4mm or 1/8″ wrench. The ball end snaps off quite easily.
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That’s the thing though…..I think it’s a double action so you can’t take the nut out. If you could, piece of cake. That’s why I think your gonna have to go oversize and adjust. I like the gripper wrench….same idea. I’ve used the idea I’m suggesting by the by and it works well. 4mm or 1/8″ hex size is stupid. Don’t know why they’re allowed. The pressure it takes to turn a double action vs. the pressure it takes to strip crappy steel small dia. hex nut is a loser.
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So I think those are double action trusses? If so, I’d take a 5/32″ hex wrench, cut the 90 degree end of so it’s straight, slightly bevel one end, and hammer it in and adjust. 5/32 is a hair bigger than 4mm. You can back it out by putting a pair of vice grips on the end of the rod and hammering on the vice grips to back it out.
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I know this day and age probably too expensive but back in the day, I’d pay for a seat for my upright bass…….Lotsa fellow musicians did this. How much is the resonator worth? How much is a seat?
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Found this series last night. The only add to this would be to use fret shield when pulling frets as I don’t know wether these were installed sideways. Neck has crappy, uneven, thick buildup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zhaG8pw-Bc
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Try this: Score along frets (as you are doing), use a shield (like your using) that’s a tad wider then frets so you can get fret tongs (shape head and sharpen to ensure they angle under frets so you can pull them. A lot of fret pullers heads are too flat and this makes them hard to get under frets. Heads need to be angled so that tips can work under frets) under frets, heat frets with solder method to soften crap they used then as finish and encased fret edges, then (and this is key difference from standard belief of tapping out sideways) pull them, using positive hand strength, work them straight up, with pinching tong motion only. I’ve done this and it works fine. In my case, the tough ones came out clean. I suspect that even if tangs widen slot on way out, this will still be a much cleaner pull, due to shield keeping fretboard next to frets compressed, where as taking out sideways, no way to stop tearing. If slots widen, simply use fret crimpers to fit new frets to slots. Use triangle file to file fret slots to clean up edges and then install frets (glue them in) with wide width heads to mask areas that may have tear out. 70’s sideways fret installs with the crappy, thick finish they used suck. Many of us have had a hard time with them so don’t be put off or intimidated. And lastly, if you are near Ian, take up his offer. Never pass up a chance to visit with a Master
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Yay! thanks for taking time….Ya, checked the nut although it’s doing this while fretted……
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Gosh, thanks so much for getting back. Ya, checked the saddle, break angle, etc. smoothed for fun. Changed out strings. Nothing seems to work. A tough one.
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Hi Evan! Just the man I wanted to talk to…….Yes, lowered the pickups ALL THE WAY DOWN then back again. New strings…..It’s more like an aftershock is how I can best explain it, and when playing heavy handed, as my customer does. Keeping me up nights as I feel inadequate……I see you are on the loothalong. I will see if I can convey better there….
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Yes! Thank you for this. There is indeed a business development dept. in town. I checked the zoning first thing when deciding to open. We’re zoned for light business. The dog next door is louder than the business. The is the only issue that I was unaware of. Everything else legit. I will take your advice and go to the development dept. first. Thank You!
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Hey Bryan, thanks for the reply. Ya, I was hoping that this is the case and not somehow tying the business into the property. I’m going to talk to them tomorrow. It was the one thing I didn’t anticipate or know about.
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From square to round…..
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McMaster/Carr has all sorts of rod choices……….
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So, I have a set of hex wrenches that have the bend cut off. I then attach an appropriate length 1/4″ socket wrench extension with appropriate socket to match size of whatever hex size I’m using. If it’s a mystery, I just start trying different sizes until I find the right size. 1/4″ drive socket wrench allows for room to maneuver. Same use if it’s a standard nut. I then use thin wall, straight wall, 8 point sockets…Why they still put nuts in end blocks boggles the mind……..
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I like the 3m purple tape plus rubbing on shirt. It was the only thing that wouldn’t pull old lacquer of ’33 Gibson……….
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Hard to find. I found one online but they only ship to Eastern Europe. Any friends in Germany? https://www.meinlshop.de/en/ibanez/spare-parts/e-basses/potentiometers/ibanez-poti-for-volume-2pin-5pin-b500k-3vpv25a What does the circuit board do? Can you simply install a 500k standard pot without the circuit board?
meinlshop.de
IBANEZ Poti for Volume 2pin, 5pin, B500K (3VPV25A)
IBANEZ Poti for Volume 2pin, 5pin, B500K (3VPV25A)
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I use two heat lamps. Scott St. Dennis uses a heat lamp as well in his vids. I think this system works well because it heats up neck from underneath as well. I think you need to put it/them closer and get the heat up higher than 180 as the glue is probably pva and titebond says starts to soften at 150 but I think the glue used is probably higher. I’d take the heat up to at least 200 or so to account for heat loss at inner actual joint and truss rod is a big heat sink. The neck shown in pic used titebond. I heated to about 220 and finger board not close to separating and polly finish doesn’t start to melt until at least 220. Note the sheetmetal reflector underneath to reflect heat to underside. Key! Heats the whole shootin’ match up where as bar type heaters only heats from the top. The neck shown does not have a fingerboard on it, but same principle(this neck had a side bow of an 1/8” as well and that’s what it’s being heated for in the pic. It took the side bow out as well). I bent this neck first for the back bow with the fingerboard on it. It had a 1/4″ back bow. I over bent by same amount. It came back fairly straight and easily truss rod adjustable. The sequence I used that I got with input from Scott’s vids are this. Release tension in truss rod. Over bend neck by same amount yours is under bent ( in your case 023?). Heat neck until desired temp reached (heat gun temp reader), remove heat and leave clamped for two or three days (key). Tighten truss rod after that time until pressure applied. Then un-clamp.
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I should have been more specific. I was thinking of swelling direct, specific area. Not bagging the whole thing, which sounds crazy. I was thinking of putting the mandolin on it’s back, adding moisture directly to the area (half the mandolin bottom near the area that needs to grow) and swell that area hoping to swell enough to close gap which looks to be about 1/8 plus? It looks like the mandolin back is arched. I was thinking you could take a couple of fairly damp sponges and apply them an inch back from the split where the arch dips hoping to swell enough but keeping area at split dry so you can glue. This way your isolating swelling so as not to cut loose a bunch of joints. You could try this before surgery. What can it hurt?
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Soak the bottom from the inside (so as not to hurt finish) from lower half middle out to within a couple of inches of the edge, keeping the edge dry, hoping the bottom swells enough to line up? If swells too much, monitor until it goes down just right and glue? Just an off-the-wall thought ……🪐
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Um hmmm. Kinda like when when a bong was called a water pipe…..
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Sorry. Very late to this. If your still working on it, maybe this will help? I was able to straighten a much shorter version of your problem. I used heat lamps and a reflector to get a neck (it had a back bow of 3/32) straight. I was thinking heat lamps because your fingerboard is so much longer than most. You can string them along the length of the fingerboard and the reflector heats the whole thing up, not just from the top (I saw a vid of Scott D from Harpeth Guitar Restoration use the reflector successfully). I clamped it as most do with 3/32 of up bow hoping it would spring back to flat. I got it very hot (300 degrees and I had tried less heat and let it cool but didn’t work and nothing left to lose) and you don’t have to worry about glue problems because your working with a piece of wood with nothing attached. But here’s what I think helped it to work. I used a damp sponge and wet the surface back and forth along the length a few times. Steam came off the neck. I then let it cool for a few days and it worked. It was flat when I released the clamps.
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Laurel Mountain Machineworks and Andy Fitzgibbon. He’s very responsive and I believe he has machining capabilities. On instagram if you have at Andy Fitzgibbon and you can find him on Google. Guy’s awesome machinist and banjo guy.
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So……the same tool you used doesn’t work the other way? You stuffed a torx head in correct? Should go the other way as well. You can get left handed bolt extractors as well to go in opposite direction but I think stuffing torx bit does less damage. I fixed a neck this way. It twisted all over the place. Someone bottomed out nut in relief direction and broke off hex ball end in nut. Extracted that but the advantage I had was the nut wasn’t stripped. I turned nut in clockwise direction until tightened up. Then backed off to neutral. Neck was 3/32″ upbowed! I clamped double the amount of relief into neck (1/4″ expecting neck to spring back but also thinking that I’d have more play in truss rod towards relief). Then used two heat lamps to heat entire neck to about two hundred degrees. I put sheetmetal reflector under neck to reflect heat to underside (this idea from Scott St. Dennis. He has numerous youtube vids where he uses this method. Good to check out. Thanks Scott!). Used an infared gun to check. You can move heat lamps up and down above neck to control heat. See previous post to go from here. End result was slight relief. Go For It!
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And……You know this already but I found out that: Newer Music Man bridge saddle assemblies are way too over thought……..They have different length saddle adjustment screws! I was wondering why they were so short on the B string and wouldn’t give me enough throw to get proper saddle height. Figured it was because that is the limit. Beyond that and your too high. So I take the saddle completely apart only to find that there are two screw lengths. Now my powers of deduction kick in and I figure that some one at the factory was having a bad day. They put two sets of long ones where the D and G string saddles are, mixed and matched on the B string with a short and a long, obviously where the long ones should go, and did the same on the E string! After sorting that mess out, voila! I was able to get proper set up heights. I have never seen differing lengths screws on any instrument I’ve worked on. Why they just didn’t put longer length screws in all the saddle barrels is beyond me. Something they missed at the Sweetwater “55 point check” Anyway, fret leveling, your all important string brand recommendation and figuring out the bridge mess worked….Thanks again!
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Yes, checked for rattling, which is difficult! Tapping on the fretboard and I used the old trick of holding a screwdriver to my ear! And thank you for these checks! I just have to show this customer that I’ve checked everything. I’m fairly sure at this point that the neck is wonky. Instruments shipped in from 45% humidity or more to an area of down to 7% or less have a hard time. Most of my work so far has been in dealing with this and customers have a hard time dealing with a new instrument turning into a pretzel so quickly! So now I go to you folks with any and all ideas to make sure I haven’t missed anything. I so greatly appreciate the input!
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Hi Brandon. Yes, I’m pretty sure at this point that the neck’s tweaked. I’ve spent hours going over everything else to make sure. Most of the work I have so far is from humidity, or lack of. So far, instruments most affected come from online purchases. They come from areas with a humidity of at least 45% or more to a climate that can go as low as 7%. And the instruments are affected instantly. I’ve only been in business for less than four months and most instruments needing fret work are relatively on the new side and I’ve had to do fret work on almost all of them with some outright fretboard leveling. Acoustics come and bodies crack overnight. The customers have a hard time believing it but so far all have been good about accepting that a just purchased instrument has turned into a pretzel. This customer is no exception. Good guy but I’ve had to make sure I’ve done everything to show him that semi major surgery needs to happen. And I want to make sure from all of you who have years of knowledge that I cover all the bases (no pun intended!) and know as much as there is to know about all the quirks of the different instruments out there. This place is awesome that way and the people like you are awesome! My initial investment into tools has served well up to a point. My plan is to continue to add as needed so I don’t continually spend money and start making money. So far so good. I have bought notched straight edges for most scales except for long scale basses. So, now that I have this bass, I just two dayed one from the ever ready Stewmac. I need to make sure there’s enough fret height to overcome any fretboard wonkiness to determine wether a fret level is all that’s necessary. I have measured with a feeler gauge from frets down with a straight edge, but you know better than I that the frets are worn and not a perfect source for accuracy. I’m doing all this because the customer needs to be shown. Thank you for reaching out! I’m trying everything you guys are giving me!
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Ya, It buzzed before, why it was brought in. I’ve basically set the thing up about literally 50 times…..I put it on me and went from dead straight and went all the way to radical relief in 16th turn increments and always came back to it sounding best with least amount of noise where it is currently, which is in the ballpark for set ups on the thing. I also fret leveled it on the jig after all of that and the frets were a bit high in the middle. Thing is dead flat across frets now. And still sets up in the same place for the best sound so far. Even Gluck said to can Ernie ball’s and go to D’Addarios….Lowered the pickups all the way down, polished the saddle slots, neck angle fine……It’s been tough on me, but I’m determined to get the better of the thing….first real challenge of the new shop…..
