Cort Semi Hollow

[Sonic Mountain]

Hey brains trust,

So I've just had a guy drop off a rather battle worn Cort semi hollow body guitar. I think it's a copy of an ES-335?

Anyway, he's finding that it flexes a lot when he plays it. I've had a bit of a play and it certainly does seem kind of soft, you can certainly de-tune it by pulling back on the neck a bit.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has come across this and thoughts on a fix?

There is certainly a bit of cracking around the neck joint, but it doesn't appear to get worse when I manipulate the neck, but I guess that's the obvious point that might be causing problems.

Does anyone know what the neck joint actually looks like where it attaches? Would it be a dove tail?

It also looks like the board has dried out and the frets are attempting to push through the binding.

Some pics, just after any thoughts people might have. Not entirely sure it's worth the effort to try and fix, but it's been left here indefinitely to see if I can do anything with it...

[Sonic Mountain]

Couple more pics for general interest.

Appears to have genuine Gibson pickups.



It's a tenon joint... so that answers that question. Seems to be ok.. was kind of expecting cracks



Mega fret wear




Looks like its been hot.




mmm corrosion

[Woltz]

Definitely a 335 copy and looking at the photos I'd expect the neck joint would be the same or similar to Gibson and Epiphone. My approach would be to first get the neck pickup out so I can see more of the join and look for damage.

The question of whether it's worth it to fix is a bit subjective as you know. Does the bloke have any attachment to it? How much work does it need to be a nice playing guitar again?

Me personally, I'd probably have a go at fixing it up because I have a bit of a soft spot for 335 style guitars.

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[Woltz]

Haha beat me to it sonic. Great minds and all.

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[Sonic Mountain]

Yeah he really likes the guitar and wants to use it for gigging, but you are right, potentially a lot of work involved if the neck has to come off. From inside the cavity the join looks solid. The cracking in the finish isn't unusual either from what I've been able to find.

I'm wondering is some general flex is normal? I have worked on one of these guitars previously installing a roller bridge and I don't recall it flexing, but then again, I'm not going to be applying those kinds of forces to a customer guitar... so I don't know.

[Sonic Mountain]

Haha beat me to it sonic. Great minds and all.

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Hah ha. All good, any info is good info, even if it's only confirmation.

[fender3x]

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.

[Simon Barden]

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.

[Simon Barden]

Something along these lines:

[McCreed]

Ya gotta love Dan!