#framus12stringproject

oh, gawd, I just saw the 12 string version of my Framus acoustic. Neck's broke at both ends, but I would give it exactly the treatment I gave mine. . I had resigned myself to the Seagull and went to get it, but thankfully it was gone, and then I saw this one, it's a little more money, but it's half what the last one like it was, and I was cussing myself out for missing that one.. The thing is I have a 12 string, I put together like that, but it's plywood, a composite body, I'll cannibalize it for the neck and the bolt on plate and screws, and the one I found has a better fretboard and tuners. I'll have to make another block. . I just hope I can relax, take my time with it, abuse my hands a little less. . I mean I haven't got it yet. It would be cool to have a matching set. 💜 . UPDATE: they accepted! Looking forward. I always forget to copy all the pics in the ad before I buy, now the ad's gone. . /1 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject#Guitar

Well, I have my summer project, something to do while I dehydrate, get ready for another thread of amateur luthiery. . Big plans to do what I haven’t quite yet: for starters I’d like to get the neck off without splitting one side, I’ve done that with both of my Framuses, acoustic and electric. On the electric I chiseled the old joint out and on my acoustic I did that too the first time. This time it was my first block to remove and I did that with water, and the whole joint had been exposed and reset before so I could open it up some, rebuild what I had destroyed the first time. . That doesn’t look to be the case with this one, I think the top is intact and of coarse I’d like to keep it that way, so there’s no access inside for deconstruction, I think I’ll have to leave the internal part of the old joint in, just saw the neck off from the outside and somehow build around the internal part of the joint for my block. . I want some playdough or something with which I can take 3D impressions of the inside. . /2 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

I had forgotten mine used to have that adjustable saddle, which I removed as a feature that could only lessen contact and sound. I was looking at that and thinking that was a reason it was wrong, LOL. It is not. . Although it is convenient. . Here’s the only pic I can get after the ad closed. It’s not clear enough to properly read the label inside and five digits of serial number is making me nervous, but everything else has to be right. . /3 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

of course the point is, is it a real spruce top or is it a composite, Framus made maybe millions of composite guitars, and the point of that is you can tell by looking at the edge of the sound hole except this pic is so poor I can’t, except that detail looks wrong if anything. . I was jumping on it and bidding a bit low, so I didn’t send messages to the seller asking, everything else seems right - I mean, the composite Texans don’t have proper jointed necks like this one, they’re bolt-ons. It almost has to be right, but the pic is making me crazy. 🫣 . /4 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

Oh, I never had that spelled out for me, they just said on Antiques Roadshow that Gibson stopped using solid tops and went to composite for electrified acoustics (in the mid-fifties, it's a 160E ), because composite doesn't resonate as well, so it doesn't feed back as much. . There's plywood Gibsons too, who knew? LOL . /5 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject . (apparently the courier has picked the 12 string up from the vendor, if I'm reading the tracking right, which, probably not.)

Busted neck in Dusseldorf waitin’ for a plane feeling just like Schrodinger’s guitar 🎶🙄🙄 . EDIT TO ADD: I mean, it’s definitely dead, but is it a real cat, that’s the question . /6 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

depressed and terrified of the future, I am going to try to give my brain a problem it can work on besides that, and if the guitar is right, that will be my brain’s hamster wheel this summer, and it will take most of my cognitive resources to do it, it’s sort of impossible. There’s a reason they keep making new guitars, they mostly die rather than become beautiful vintage things, and if they’re not dead, some real luthier restores them. . (With a full size jointed neck and I assume they have to take the top off to do it? I’m trying to avoid that, I wouldn’t know how and I don’t want to practice on this guitar and wreck it. Also I need a thinner neck and I have this idea that the Texan ply necks are small but still strong, still able to resist the forever pull of the strings). . Again, if they’re alive, the real doctors may save them, in approved ways. I am a body snatcher, I get them on their way to the cemetery and do profane experiments with them, playing God, trying to recreate life, being Dr. Frankenguitar. . Twice I have put an old Texan neck mounting block in by cutting it in half horizontally and putting it back together inside with glue. One, the composite 12 string, is maybe three years old and still OK, the other one was the Revenant’s fourth repair and fourth life, and a short one, the old block crumbled. . I’ll use a new block of maple, like I’ve done for the Revenant’s fifth and current life, but somehow through the sound hole, whereas the Revenant had been opened wide at the neck in the past and I could access a lot more. And again, somehow around the interior half of the old dovetail joint. . I’m trying to imagine ways to get a 3D image of the interior, sculptung clay, 3D scanning and printing, something. . This morning I thought about how long a process it was to set the neck angle right on the Revenant, and how difficult that will be with twice the strings, and I was briefly overwhelmed. Not looking forward to that at all. If I ever get there. . I mean, I wasn’t shopping for a 12 string, I have enough trouble with six strings, I’m just shopping for exactly this one, because I’ll have a set. 👍 . SOOO problematic. I’m on the wheel already, the thing is still overseas, I think. 💜 . /7 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

I think it's in the air tonight Ha, and I can feel it coming 😜 .. /8 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

I think the 3D scanning and printing idea is real and possible, I’m going to shop for that. . /9 . also, tracking says it’s made it to Canada 😀 . I suppose it will sit in Customs for a week . #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

day 11 - the Customs process has started. . Canada Post says 1 - 12 Business days!! AAAARRGH . /10 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

Customs is complete, Canada Post assures me there will be no more updates until it’s out for delivery in my town, and still says 1 - 12 business days, could be today, could be two weeks still. . I don’t love surprises. 😠 . On the positive side, after another long look at that pic, I think I can see the grain of the top right over the edge of the hole at the lower bass side, in that white reflection. Now I’m pretty sure it’s real and composite would really surprise me. Did I say? I hate surprises. . /11 . #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

ah! It's not true! They just said it's at Richmond (Vancouver)!! . That ought to mean early next week. .

• oh, wait, now it’s “Arrived!” I think that means at the nearest depot. . Next it will be “Out for delivery,” meaning they deliver the note telling me I can go pick it up next day. I think. Probably on Tuesday? .
• oh, what the - it's "Out for delivery," NOW? Maybe that means I get the note Monday. . So I’m going crazy, hearing it’s almost here on Friday night, knowing nothing moves until Monday, but it’s perfect karma, I ordered the thing two weeks ago, putting the vendor to work on that Friday night. 😠🙄 . Payback’s a . . . Fender? 😘 . /12 . #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

OK, I got it, fellow brought it right up to my door. 👍💜 . I’ll gird my loins and open it soon. 🥹🎶 . /13 . #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

OK, here’s a problem I hadn’t anticipated. The guitar is right, a proper spruce top ‘67, exactly a match for my 6 string, the only problem is it’s TOO good. . It looks brand new still, or recently made new again, it’s beautiful. Too beautiful for the treatment I want to give it. I’m afraid it may need to be properly repaired and reset instead. with this broken neck. . /14 . #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

. . . of coarse that headstock is beautiful, but that neck and that nut are of no use to me, I can’t touch my finger to thumb around it at the SECOND fret. On the student/composite/plywood 12 string neck I have, I can touch at the sixth. My test, my minimum for my 6 string guitars is the eighth. It’s crazy that these Framus student 12 string necks come so close. . I could play that neck at the easy end, at least. Of course I have dreams of improving upon that. . /15 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

Hmmm . . . they’re the same, or they were during the Revenant’s first life, but the 12 string is far thinner. I wonder if that’s a thing about 12 strings, an acoustic thing, sounds better or something. . Also, what I think what was the Revenant’s original neck had that shape of headstock, but it was composite. This neck is clearly real wood, with some real character. . /16 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

Hey, it’s not actually busted, both breaks have been fixed. it’s just end of life. . So perfect, just what I’ve been shopping for, a vintage thing that’s still looking good, only end of life, that is my sweet spot, and this is the best one yet. . the only way it could be better at three times this price is if it said Gibson or Martin on it instead of Framus. 😀💜💜💜🎶 . So chuffed. . /17 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

hey, this part is the same as the Revenant too 😜 . Maybe be it wasn’t all me . There’re other problems, when the neck broke, the side there split a bit, I can see daylight looking that way from inside. Someone has gone to some lengths to make this axe LOOK in perfect shape. I’m starting to think the neck has been reset before too. . No matter. I’ll fix all that with the new block. And I’ll find out soon enough anyway. . But first things first is clamp this guitar up around the neck, and glue the clamps on so they stay. I do NOT want to split the sides of this one. . EDIT TO ADD: masking tape because it comes off, then duct tape for the cloth and strength, then flat bits of wood glued to the duct tape, then clamps. I do NOT want to split this one, dammit. 😠 There’s a pic. /18 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

Four toots up and back in this thread is the Framus label, and I see a date of “67K,” (the “K,” is the month, 11th letter, 11th month, I think, November, ‘67, the number is the year) but someone thinks it says “57K.” . I’m assuming the stamp simply missed for the leftmost part of the circle in a “6,” I thought the top part was round, not the straight top of a “5.” . But someone thinks otherwise, and I’m starting to see no arc at all across the fretboard, and that might put it in the ‘50s. It’s also super wide. . So, a poll, four toots up, what do you see? . /19 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject

OK, so maybe we don’t convert this one, maybe we don’t lose this neck. . (I mean, maybe whoever made this guitar look so nice reset the neck with some kind of forever glue, I can’t get the fretboard off.) . So it’s back to plan . . . A, I guess, the way I did the very first one, the Vega I’ve passed along, and that’s to sand the equal and opposite shape of end of life into that fretboard sand the ends off, make it convex instead of concave - and stick another new fretboard on top of it. Was some trial and error, but the Vega was great, truss rod slack, good in theory for decades again. . Means paring the sides off this very wide neck to get it somewhere near my size, that’s what I’ve been at today. . It’s the best scenario if I can make it work. The wood is pretty. Lot of sanding, but making the block for the Revenant was murder too, worse. . Gawd, what have I done. This is going to be really long. 😬🫣 . /20 #Guitar #Framus12StringProject