60's Fender Villager 12 string Acoustic Options?

[Jerry Ryan]

I got this Fender Villager, late 60's 12 string with a bolt on neck. Owner, who bought new' said a 'friend' thought the screws in the plate on the bottom adjusted the neck, basically the screws were tightened to the point the neck block broke. 1. the head block shifted, causing it to cave in and break just below where the neck attaches. Several breaks in block, top & side where neck attaches. 2. the bolt/screw holes were 'drilled out' to allow replacing the neck, 3. cardboard and white glue were excessively used to 'fix' by the 'buddy', no clamping all breaks out of alignment. 4. Soundboard sticks out about 3/16ths in slot for neck. See results in pics. Sorry, pics are not so good.

From what I can figure there are 2 options.

1. Clean and re-glue the breaks in the neck block, re-glue the soundboard to neck block, straighten as much as possible. Shim and adjust the neck set for playability. The 3/16" shift of the neck block will be an issue for intonation. Customer will have to live with the 'Uglies'

2. The right way to fix this would be to remove the top, remove the neck block, re-glue and straighten, replace to and fix all the breaks. Costly for customer. Value is $3-400 from internet searches.


Anybody see a mess like this before? I'm planning to do #1. Any warnings, tips?


Jerry

[William F.Eden]

I have fixed two of these and they both had the same problem I put a hard Maple brace across at the and of the block up tite to the block. see if there is a kink at the and of the body that you can heat a spachal down there and bring the block back were it should be. That rod that runs down through the centre is emposibale to ajust as you can't get your hand in there.The problem is they cut far to much of the block out for the bolt on neck and left nothing to hold it alltogether the top dose not hold much as it is glued to the and grain of the block by about 1/2" on ether side. P.S I did put a new top on the one as it was all cracked anyway Good luck Bill.""""""""""""

[Richard Clark]

Hi This is my second of these inner rod ideas by Fender. The first wasn't as bad as this one and the one in my shop. The one in my shop now was probably made on the same day as yours. Except the back has come loose at the tail block because of the rod. By now your project is probably over and I am still considering if it is worth the time to fix this. As with Mr. Eden the top might have to be changed also. So if I could get something from him about the internal rod, since he had the top off. Did you try to mess with the rod when the top was off? Did you try a wrench on it and if so what size and what happened? I had thought just remove it as there are braces and cracks that need to be repaired on the top if it doesn't get changed. As you who have tried have found, it is near impossible to get at the inside of these guitars with the rod. To Mr. Ryan, did your repair go alright and did you end up changing the top or just the block repair and intonation? I have looked all over and this is the only reference to one of these guitars and repairing one that I have been able to find.

[Tim Mace]

What do those damn rods do neway?Was it designed to fail if that piece of crap running down the guitar's insides is disconnected? Frank'll know what to do .....! Like you I'd be tempted to remove it and let nature take its course.

[Paul Verticchio]

As I recall, the rod was there as a brace onto which an equally miserable DeArmond pickup made especially for Fender would clamp. I remember my local mom&pop dealership had a Fender acoustic WITH the pickup installed. The innovative marketing strategy was that the top would vibrate more freely if the pup didn't come into contact with it. It just gets "wronger" from there. These were and continue to be terrible designs. Hope this info helps.

[Jerry Ryan]

Hi, I spent considerable time and clamps using hide glue (wicked as much as I could into the cracks) to reset to head block and re-connect to the soundboard. Doweled all of the screw holes in the neck and head block (all were stripped) made a new oak dowel that supports the neck to the head block, that was the intonation stage as the original holes were no longer placed the neck scale where it originally was with all the 'shifting' that occurred. My adjustment added about 3/16". Made a thin plate of hard maple to raise the neck action (apx 1/8") faced with binding where it shows under the neck. Put it all together. Seems to work! If I was doing this for a living, I wouldn't have attempted it.

[Greg Mirken]

"Value is $3-400 from internet searches."

Maybe, if you could find one that had never been strung up. These are badly designed instruments, and it's too bad that someone will pay anything for them at all. People would bring them in to my shop coming apart as you describe in the 70's. The screws probably had nothing to do with it; they just self-destruct.

As far as I'm concerned (as you can perhaps guess) this is toast.

[Tom Krebs]

Yes, these are very poorly made. I am currently making a twelve string telecaster from a Villager neck.

[Richard Clark]

You three all have very good assumpitons of my own personal feelings and ideas of what to do with Fender's idea. Re using the neck is a good one, recycle what you can. What were they thinking when they did the rod thing. The rest of the guitar looks like the inside of a vintage Ep, the block the bolt on neck and the light weight bracing. Except for the bad neck blocks, which I have rebuilt several of, the rest survived most of the time with out the weird rod.

[Tim Mace]

methlnks we have Porter Wagoner to thank for making such a gaudy design popular...Fender should have remained totally focused on Leo's electrics.

[Michael G]

Those were not made in the large Fullerton factory, but at a different location in Southern CA, by a different company entity than the one that made the electric guitars and amps. From memory, I think it was something like Fender Acoustic Instruments (or something like that). They were distributed by Fender Sales, Inc. which was, again, a different corporate entity than the factory that made the products. They (Fender Sales) were at the Santa Ana address that was on a lot of Fender documents, such as the product manuals and ads of the 60's. The Santa Ana address was on a cul de sac street that was adjacent to Rickenbacker's factory. My information has it that the Fender acoustic instruments had the involvement of both Semie Mosley and Roger Rosmeisel, but I don't know if Rickenbacker or Mosrite were involved in the actual production.

[Jeffrey L. Suits]

Or, if the customer insists, get very serious money upfront. "Sentimental value" customers are notorious
for remorse.

[Richard Clark]

I am glad to see this thread going on a little farther. I have enjoyed the comments. I have a friend that does Fender restoration, so I had him ask Fender some questions about the Villiger 12's but the people he asked didn't have a clue. Maybe they weren't old enough. So us guys out here in the trenches know more about them and all the problems dealing with their weird design. I agree with the guys about dealing with the customer. Mine didn't want to go to the cost of what I would have to have for a new top and trying to fix all the problems. I don't blame him, as ebay has a couple for less but they look like they have the same issues. They have a new model but with out the rod, but it isn't the elf hat headstock, or what ever you call it. But if it is an old friend some will go the cost to make things playable again.