who can fix my neck???

[blinklit]

hi,i'm looking for someone who can remove a bow from my 450b neck.it was stored under a bed in florida for 10 years with the strings tight,while the old man was on the road;he drove for fla.coach;toor bus for bob dylan,van halen,willy nelson,judds,lynyrd skynyrd,etc..when i got it i brought it home to the local guitar pro.it sat in vices and clamps for a month and as soon as it was removed,replaced and re-strung,the bow slowly returned.it's to the point now i will not play it as it pi$$es me off.
about 12-15 years ago i spoke to phil patillo in asbury park ny,and he said to put it in an arbor press overnight at a certain pressure at a certain place and that would fix it.there's nobody around here i would trust to do this work and the guitar repair shops say "a what","no truss rod".
i hope there's somebody with info on this problem,i have heard it's somewhat common if the strings are left tuned and it is stored???
i'm tired of people saying "i'll try".i can do that;i want this to be fixed properly once and for all.the action is sooo high,if i play fast,it's popity,popity,pop.i just can't take it anymore.
thanks for any info.
don't get me wrong,i LOVE my bass.it belonged to my father.everyone that sees it loves it,it just needs some tuning up.i live in new brunswick canada,so i suspect i'll need to ship it away to be repaired,if i can find someone to do it correctly.hopefully i can send just the neck for shipping purposes.
thanks in advance for any help you can offer to help get my baby's neck fixed.

[TommysGs]

When you bend any kind of metal you have to bend it past were you want it to be as metal has a modulas of elastisity.

You have a tough dellema because someone could really make a mess of it if they don't do it right.

[blinklit]

hi,yea,that's the problem.the method used was to place blocks on either end and clamp the bowed area down,this will work on smaller bows,but this was pretty bad.if memory serves me,it was up to 2-4 inches and clamped to the table in the middle.never lost a fret though,so he was careful,it was scarry.oh,if i can get this fixed,i will guarantee it will be de tuned untill i play.not only does it sound fantastic but is has sentimental value as well.

:bong ,hey,that reminds me.lol

i could try to track mr.patillo down,if he's still around,he said he could fix it properly.i think he had something to do with the design of the alum.neck.???

[geoffnjersey]

hi,i'm looking for someone who can remove a bow from my 450b neck.it was stored under a bed in florida for 10 years with the strings tight,while the old man was on the road;he drove for fla.coach;toor bus for bob dylan,van halen,willy nelson,judds,lynyrd skynyrd,etc..when i got it i brought it home to the local guitar pro.it sat in vices and clamps for a month and as soon as it was removed,replaced and re-strung,the bow slowly returned.it's to the point now i will not play it as it pi$$es me off.
about 12-15 years ago i spoke to phil patillo in asbury park ny,and he said to put it in an arbor press overnight at a certain pressure at a certain place and that would fix it.there's nobody around here i would trust to do this work and the guitar repair shops say "a what","no truss rod".
i hope there's somebody with info on this problem,i have heard it's somewhat common if the strings are left tuned and it is stored???
i'm tired of people saying "i'll try".i can do that;i want this to be fixed properly once and for all.the action is sooo high,if i play fast,it's popity,popity,pop.i just can't take it anymore.
thanks for any info.
don't get me wrong,i LOVE my bass.it belonged to my father.everyone that sees it loves it,it just needs some tuning up.i live in new brunswick canada,so i suspect i'll need to ship it away to be repaired,if i can find someone to do it correctly.hopefully i can send just the neck for shipping purposes.
thanks in advance for any help you can offer to help get my baby's neck fixed.
thair is a guy down down in florida who could it his name is Rick Athas, he has a shop down thairi worked with him at Karmer, if i had all my tools it would be easy to fix. The other thing you can try is PaulUnkrt i think he is at Vacciro Guitars, hes a pain in the ass but he might be able to do it. And just to let you know we never left necks in the press, we did a even bend up and down the neck as needed..

[blinklit]

i wouldn't mind finding Rick Athas.i really don't need to deal with someone who's a pain in the a$$.lol
does the whole thing need to go,or would only the neck be shipped?i suppose to get it set up correctly it would be best to send it complete.????

[geoffnjersey]

yea i would send him the whole thing, that way he will be able to reset the guitar....he most likely have to do some fret work, the neck will go through a lot of stress and some things will have to repaired....and after looking into it i think Rick is still in Florida!!!

[blinklit]

any idea what city or how to contact him?

[Steve EZ]

Yeah. He's still in FL. I'll see if I can dig up his email address for you. I have it in my archived emails somewhere :scratchhe
Paul Unkert knows how to arbor a neck and I think he has a press but I'm not sure if he is working much these days. I could do it for you but I don't have the press and it's been awhile. Plus I don't know if I can bend a neck straight :bong :D

[blinklit]

lol,it took me a few to get it.lol.
i've been at it all day.
yea,that would be sweet.the shipping will hurt but i think it would be a good investment.
so i guess if you know what you're doing and have the tools it's not that hard?that's what i like to hear.

:bong :notworthy :bong :drool :)

[blinklit]

not looking good so far,i even tried to contact Vaccaro and got email returned,address was n/g.
who ever thought it would be this hard to fix this.
any other people out there that might be able to help would be appreciated.i can get an arbor press,but not quite knowing exactly how to fix it i would likely fuck it up.
:help :scratchhe

[geoffnjersey]

not looking good so far,i even tried to contact Vaccaro and got email returned,address was n/g.
who ever thought it would be this hard to fix this.
any other people out there that might be able to help would be appreciated.i can get an arbor press,but not quite knowing exactly how to fix it i would likely fuck it up.
:help :scratchhe
ok i made a few calls a friend of mine says here has a press big enough to do it. i will go over on monday to check it out, if ok i will be more then happy to do it, i have to adjust my guitars also so i will do the hole lot of them....GM

[blinklit]

thanks, :notworthy ,i would appreciate that very much,i have received some emails from techs all over the u.s. and they all mention the trus rod,heating and pressure.but i'm sure this is just another temp fix and over a short time will rebound.i'd love to see how this would play if set up properly with nice action and no buzzing,as i've never had that opertunity in the 15 years i've had it.
i'll be anxiously waiting for more info.
thank you very much for helping me out so far.

[blinklit]

hey.well i brought her into the local music store to a budd of mine,he said "it plays fine,the action is a bit high,there is a slight bow in the middle and the 12 fret is a bit high." he suggested a fret job and maybe put the neck back under pressure at the bow and leave it a bit,if it took 10 tears to bow,it will take a bit to straighten.but all in all,he said it's quite playable now.he said it's my style of playing.when i play fast i tend to hit rather than pull.i guess i'll need to work on that,but back to the neck,what is the general feeling on this method?
oh and i noticed while reading the posts that it seems i should be posting this under "bass"?sorry if i'm in the wrong spot.is this only for aluminum guitars,i thought that the bass is still unique in that respect,that's why i posted here,i figured i was in that "family".i don't want to pizz anybody off.

[skillydally]

Well, I just received a 350B in trade, and unfortunately, it has a bow in the neck as well. It's not so bad that the instrument is unplayable, but definitely undesirable.

Any word on who can do these repairs? Blinkit, any luck with yours?

[Steve EZ]

I talked to a guy who used to work at the factory with me. I think he may be interested in doing a few repairs and he has the press required for the job. I'll let you know if he agrees or not.

[Galaxyssb]

here is a link for you...

http://www.bassplayer.com/biography.asp?iam=246
The Guys Name is Dan Erlewine and he is a Tech Writer and Does Bass Repair out of his home.. I have been Reading "Bass Player" for some time I'm pretty confident he can fix you neck.. there is a contact on this page, also some projects he has done recently and wrote the article for Bass Player.. IT would be cool if he were to take your neck and do an article, he likes the old School stuff.. Good Luck..

[pel666]

Dan is the man! Had contact with him on numerous occasions for advice in the past, you can forum him directly via www.lespaulforum.com , he has his own area :thumbsup

What I do want to stress is that he is a luthier, not a metalworker....I remember having seen this problem before, I'd take it to a proffesional metal workshop with Alu experience, and have some of the bow rolled out.

[Steve EZ]

Since I've bowed thousands of Kramer Aluminum necks, I can tell you it is a little tricky to get it right. I'm not even sure it woudl all come back to me right away so I woudl be confident bending anyone's pride and joy. There were mor ethan a few where I had to get really rough and put soem major pressure on a small area to get the thing staight and it was always a hold your breath kind of thing waiting to hear the wood insert or ebonol fretboard pop off. :-x

Sometimes the boars would crack at the fret slot and require some Krazy glue repair work. The real concern is that the older the neck the more brittle the materials. It requires overbending to impart the right change to the aluminum lattice structure so the thing looks like it's made of rubber when it's on the press.

[pel666]

Thousands...! :notworthy

Am metalworker by trade, just like yourself, hence my remark on rolling it. More uniform and gradual approach from material perspective, and we used to have rollers at Westcoast offshore industry from small to bigass ones to roll-bend big metal and alu beams. I wouldn't be as confident with regular clamp and bending, especially keeping in mind you need to overbend the material which is more difficult. On the roller you can increment little bits to get it spot on!



I also remember someone mentioned an experienced contact, it could be you Steve actually ;)

Crappy pic to give you the idea:

[skillydally]

Steve, let me know what your buddy says. In the meantime, I'll try and contract Dan.

[Steve EZ]

Man, I just read back my last post full of typos :toast

I think rolling would probably work if it weren't for the fretboard, frets, and wood inserts. I'm not sure if it would be the kind of thing that you could get right the first time without trashing a few necks first. ;)

I have to call my friend this weeks sometime so I'll see what he has to say. He'd be the man to do it if he's interested. He used to come in to the fret room with a fully strung instrument and throw it up on the blocks and bend it with the arbor press. Nic eto be able to check for buzz while the strings are still on. Uh, not that kind of buzz :bong

[Galaxyssb]

Nic eto be able to check for buzz while the strings are still on. Uh, not that kind of buzz :bong


Now that's funny!!

[pel666]

For rolling you could easily take some scrap alu, and roughly saw the frets in it...rolling bare on the FB would be crude indeed :-x Good luck, and be sure to share what happened!

[skillydally]

Well, luckily for me, the bass still plays fairly well. I wish I could say the same -- I'm a uke and guitar player not a bass player.

I got the 350 in trade for an old mixer of mine which I hadn't used in over a year. Good deal for both of us since the other guy hadn't played the bass in quite some time.

At this point, it's only issues are the bent neck and missing pickup cover. Having read through the forum, I found pictures and schematics for making replacement maple covers, so I'm having a friend make me those.

If Steve's friend comes through or if I hear of anyone else with experience, I'll definitely consider getting it fixed. In the meantime, it's time to learn some bass guitar. It certainly will be well used in my band -- we pass an acoustic and all pickup various other instruments on some songs(hamonica, uke, bass, keyboard, etc.). If you're interested in some adult comedy music, check out our site: Dick Butt Kiss and the Tightends - www.dbkte.com (http://www.dbkte.com)

[eman126]

Hey All,

I actually stumbled upon this forum trying to find out a little history about my Bass. I believe that I have a Vanguard Bass. Thats the name I saw in a Kramer Catalog. I'm not exactly sure of the age of this bass, but I can tell you that I bought it used in I believe 1981 from a little music store. I believe that I payed 299.00 for it. I too like almost everybody else has got a bend in the neck. But I believe that I can get mine back in shape by tuning it up right. I was really interested in finding out how rare that these are. Until this evening I had never seen another Bass like mine. I've seen the Aluminum neck configuration on other guitars but not this specific style. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!

[Unhomed]

Check our sister site Vintagekramer.com. Look under 'guitars', 'american', 'vanguard' to see pictures and a brief history of those guitars. They are hard to find, wonderful quality instruments.

There are also old catalogs listed on that site that may contain the guitar, they are listed by (most) years. There are people here who are much more qualified than I am to give out more specifics and repair tips.

E-bay seems to be a good source for replacement necks, if needed, but bass necks are a rarer find.

Good luck on your info hunt!

p.s. posting a picture would be helpful to all.

[eman126]

I tried to add a pic the other night but the size was too large. Will try to get different pics.

[eman126]

This is exactly what I have only it's solid white. Only has a few marks on it too. The pickup really
needs to be cleaned up but all in all it's a good bass. I love the sound it has.

[Unhomed]

Those are a great looking bass, I have 2 lummies in white. Get onto the posting listing a few below this one called "Lumie Flying V" by our 'Dr. Greenthumb'. He just picked up on the 'bay a vanguard Flying V bass just like yours, different color. He might be albe to hook you up with more info that VintageKramer.com can't. He certainly has more knowledge on these than I have. I've been looking for a vanguard guitar (non bass) for a while, but none have come up that I can afford, yet. Either way, you have a nice instrument there.

Rik

[danielstexas]

I live in Beaumont, Texas (hot , 100% humidity) and own a XL8 aluminum bass. Until today I've never heard of this horror story. At 4-Bass Strings and 4- Guitar Strings it has arguably the most tension of any of these guitars (maybe unless the 12- string exist?).
I have always left it tuned. It has to be atleast 30 years old, but I've only owned it 4. My hasn't warped. Are their any other factors(climate, storage conditions) or have any of you watched it bow over the years?I'm scared now :toilet