Questions - bent/crooked neck (sideways?!)

PCG · May 2023

Hi all,

I have a tele style guitar which I like a lot but have been struggling with a bit due to the high E being very close to the edge of the board. I’ve tried the obvious things, like resetting the neck in the pocket.

I was having another closer look today and it appears that the neck is actually bent sideways (or vertically, with the guitar in playing position). What I mean is that, placing a straight edge along the edge of the fretboard, the neck is: (I) concave on the high E side, with a mm or so gap around fret 12/13; and (ii) convex on the low E side in the same area and to the same extent.

It’s an odd one as the neck doesn’t seem to be the warped/twisted in the conventional sense. It’s just sort of bowed sideways.

I’d welcome any ideas or similar experiences. Any fixes for this?

Guitar is a K-line Truxton, and generally very well built (neck pocket is an excellent fit for example). Neck is a chunky maple effort, 10’’ radius, traditional truss rod accessed from body.

I’ve had the guitar for a number of years, and bought it second hand so it’s probably 10 years+ old now. Fairly sure this is a relatively recent thing (ie last few years).

ICBM · May 2023

Short of heat treating it - which in my limited experience with 'standard' front-to-back warps doesn't really work, since sooner or later the warp returns - I suspect the only solution to that is a new neck.

PCG · May 2023

Thanks, much appreciated. Looking at it a bit more, I wonder there may be some mitigations possible, eg new nut with fractionally narrower spacing, maybe a refret with less rolling/rounding. Think I’ll have to get it to someone to take a look in person.

BillDL · May 2023

Chris Kroenlein's warranty would only have been for 5 years to the original purchaser via K-Line (if bought in US) or distributor (elsewhere), so that angle of potential resolution is out the window, however perhaps he MIGHT have a spare neck that he would sell you for a reasonable price. The problem would be the shipping costs and possible import duty.

Coda Music is the authorised UK distributor. Maybe they know of a way to get a reasonably priced replacement neck:

https://www.coda-music.com/

PCG said:

...... the neck is: (I) concave on the high E side, with a mm or so gap around fret 12/13; and (ii) convex on the low E side in the same area and to the same extent.

The fret ends are bevelled, so you have a "playable" area and an angled end that the string will slip off if pushed down onto that bevel. Do you mean that the High E string is actually off the edge of the playable surface of the fret BY 1mm at the 12th/13th and above the bevel very close to the edge of the fretboard, or do you mean that the string is actually out in the air beyond the edge of the fretboard in that area?

Depending on what you meant in the above description, there are only two possible ways that the issue MIGHT be addressed. Both would be very expensive and not cost-effective when compared with the cost of a replacement neck, and MAY NOT even be enough to mitigate or even fix the problem.

1. Have the neck refretted and ask for the fret ends to be dressed in the way that some very expensive guitars have them finshed where they look like shiny round blobs of solder. "Hemispherical Fret Ends". On them you have a tiny bit more playable surface towards the edge of the board because the normal bevel end is almost non-existent. They feel different to play and it involves intricate workmanship that comes with a steep price.

2. Binding. Removal of all the frets, a rebate cut into the edge of the fretboard, binding glued into place to widen the neck a tiny bit, and new frets installed and finished with a much steeper angled bevel end. The new binding that would now overhang the shoulder of the neck would have to be blended down to the width of the neck and would create quite a sharp feel to the fretboard edge. The problem here would be whether to keep the binding the same width all the way down the neck and possibly make it look slightly odd because the outside strings don't run parallel with it all the way, or taper it on the apex of the convex side and at either end on the concave side so that the neck then seems to be straighter but the binding now looks odd with the differing widths.

Looking at this pragmatically I really don't think either possible fixes would work and leave you with a playable neck, and I think both would not be cost effective given the amount of work involved. Replacement neck via the maker or Coda Music I would say.

One other option, and probably the most cost-effective and realistic. Ask a good luthier to make a replica of the neck using the same profiles, headstock shape, etc, and try to find somebody that could scan the headstock logo and make a new slide decal if it has one. There are a lot of excellent guitar builders on this site.

Image: https://tfb-user-images.eu-central-1.linodeobjects.com/9229da40e7c72cc786d5420286397fe7dfa0dd0d745af05183

The logo is pretty simple and would be easy to replicate. The headstock reminds me of some I have seen on production Tele copy guitars of good quality, but I will have to have a look around to see what ones. It MIGHT be just as easy to buy a fretted and finished neck with the same heel dimensions and a fairly similar headstock shape, or else an unfinished fretted one with a paddle headstock that you could ask a luthier to shape for you and finish with lacquer.

paganskins · May 2023

If the neck is already compromised could you not take a bit off the bass side of the heel to allow the neck to be twisted slightly in the pocket thus talking all the strings' paths toward the bass side?

PCG · May 2023

Thanks so much for the comments and suggestions. I’ll reply more fully later but wanted to say thanks in the meantime.

Thankfully the guitar is absolutely playable, it’s more of a niggle and potential area improvement. The string only slips off the edge from time to time, and only in cases of serious and probably ill advised waggle / vibrato…!

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Questions - bent/crooked neck (sideways?!)

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