THE PINK GUITAR

My patience surely is tested doing this build. That said, it's for a worthy cause. Thanks for the compliments all! As for next steps Wokka, I am dropping the body off at my luthier friend. Google Ernie Taylor Guitars, he does the most awesome stuff! He is going to clear coat the body for me and has also offered to shape the headstock and put pink sidemarkers in the neck. The pink pickups you see in some of the pics are a set of preloved DiMarzio PAF pros that he donated.

I am going to stain the neck pink, using the stain that I had special ordered for the veneer cap I since sanded back. Might as well put it to good use it's bloody expensive! The front of the headstock I still need to design a paint scheme for but it will take nclude fluro paint most likely...

All typos and nonsensical grammatical structures courtesy of iPhone auto correct...

plans sound awesome Jay, you really do love the colour pink !

Speaking of the neck, and you already know this if you follow the pink guitar Facebook page, when I picked it up at my luthier friend's workshop we noticed that the truss rod came loose... The problems with this build are going to be the death of me! :-D

Hi Jay, what you mean the truss rod came loose, do you mean you rotate the allen key in both directions and it doesn't get tighter ?
if it has come out of the neck you may be able to knock it back in place.
Please post a photo or describe what is happening, we'll see if we can rectify it

Loose as in it had come out. by moving the neck you can actually "shake it out", I can grab the end and pull the whole thing out!

I just tried to upload a photo, didn't work because photo too large....

Anywho, you can't actually pull the whole thing out like I said, because the angle of the headstock will not allow it. however, you can shake the neck and the part of the rod that takes the hex-key to adjust it comes out a good inch... This tells me that:

a) The truss rod is not slotted or it wouldn't have been able to fall out in the first place
b) Tapping it back in is not going to help as it will simply come back out. The route for the rod was simply not tight enough
c) without being able to take the rod out (which would require carving out the headstock) you can't re-glue it to the bottom of the neck

I honestly think (unless someone wants to donate a new neck, hint, hint) this project is relegated to being "for aesthetic purposes only).

Here is what that looks like:

The truss rod has no tension on it at all then

Perhaps you could tighten it enough such that it stays in place, but has no undesired effect on the neck

Or when you are done and make the correct adjustments, the tension will hold it in place

I think it is still useable, but could be very wrong. Alternatively, something like a tiny screw could hold the bottom edge of the rod in place without obstructing it's adjustability... (Is that a word?)

I have talked to my advisory board (my professional luthier friend) and we came to the conclusion this is a dud. Stan, there is no tightening it as it is not holding on to anything. You can shake the neck and hear it clunk around in there. This means they made the channel to hold the truss rod WAY TOO large. You might be able to tap it back into place but I would imagine it's just going to come loose again.

I am certainly not going to put a screw in the neck where it doesn't belong. This guitar is supposed to go up for auction with the proceeds going to cancer research. I can't really afford a "MacGyver" like that.

I am going to write Adam a note to see about replacement.