Cort Semi Hollow

[JimC]

I had a Columbus semi hollow copy back in the 80s that bent like that and kept going out of tune... Felt very guilty about selling it, but I didn't hide that there was a problem. It had no centreblock and I suspected it was the body but had no real idea how to diagnose it. I'm not sure, actually, if I have many more ideas now without a lot of very technical measuring kit. Simon's idea of clamping the neck has a lot going for it... I wonder if you could clamp the body down to a solid surface and have a reference point/scale against the end of the headstock and see how much it bent against a standard load with or without the neck joint clamped.
If it was genuine scrap it would be a good thing to take apart and try and mend because you could learn so much, but seems as if its better than that.

[Sonic Mountain]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'd be worried about the flexing. It it's an ES-335 it should have a center block so it would not flex any more than an SG or LP...which is to say, not much. Gibson ES-330's did not have center blocks. My experience hollow thinlines is that they are pretty sensitive to temperature and moisture, and go out of tune easily, but they should not have more flex than any other acoustic guitar.

So if there is much flex, there may be some breakage or cracking internally? If the joint has not come a bit loose, then my next guess would be the wood is somehow loosing it's integrity. If that's the case, it might be less work to replace then neck than to fix it.

It definitley has a centre block which appears to be solid from what I can see of it. I am starting to wonder if it's the neck itself due to some extreme heat (as the guitar appears to have been very hot at times) so you may be right that a total replacement might be the best option.

If it's just the neck that's being referred to, then the only real remedy I can think of is to take off the fingerboard and inlay some carbon fibre strengthening either side of the truss rod. Or fit a thicker replacement neck (or maybe a maple rather than mahogany one).

But it does look like there's been movement around the front of the neck joint, so it may not be as tightly glued in as it should be. Which really means neck removal and re-gluing. It's obvious got very hot at some point to bend the plastics that much, and that could have softened the glue enough for string tension to have pulled up the front of the joint slightly.

I suppose you could remove the strings, clamp the joint area and see how bendy the neck is then. If it's a lot firmer, then the joint is to blame. If it's the same, it's just the neck. In which case it's then either living with it (like a lot of SG owners had to with their skinny SG necks), or else going for the strengthening option.

Cheers Simon, you've confirmed my thinking about possible fixes for the neck. I think the next step will be clamping and trying to isolate whether its the neck or the join itself, that's a good idea before I do anything drastic.

I had a Columbus semi hollow copy back in the 80s that bent like that and kept going out of tune... Felt very guilty about selling it, but I didn't hide that there was a problem. It had no centreblock and I suspected it was the body but had no real idea how to diagnose it. I'm not sure, actually, if I have many more ideas now without a lot of very technical measuring kit. Simon's idea of clamping the neck has a lot going for it... I wonder if you could clamp the body down to a solid surface and have a reference point/scale against the end of the headstock and see how much it bent against a standard load with or without the neck joint clamped.
If it was genuine scrap it would be a good thing to take apart and try and mend because you could learn so much, but seems as if its better than that.

Yep, worst case scenario it has good electronics and pickups, so we might be able to salvage some of it. He's coming to pickup a coupel of others I've been working on today so I'll have a chat with him then and keep you all updated.

Thanks again everyone for the input, so good to have you all to bounce this stuff off.