Some More Takamine Woes...

[Mike Kolb]

Not to steal Grahame's thunder, but I also have received a 12-string Takamine with problems. This particular guitar (model EF385, ser # 80110684) was built in 1980 and has had a fairly rough life. It needs new frets, a headstock-crack repair and the top has sunk about .110" (7/64") from flat at the center. As it sits, the neck angle meets the bridge top perfectly, but that's with the top sunk. When (and if) the top can be reflattened, a neck reset will surely be in order.... about par for a 30yr-old acoustic.

BTW, it has interesting pickup (factory-installed)... an active 9V piezo mounted from under the bridge in a cast-aluminum channel of sorts, shown in one of the pictures as best I could.

So what do about the top? The braces are intact and tight and nothing seems amiss under the hood except the top has just, well, sunk over time. The guitar came to me very dry, so I'm thinking of slowly jacking-up the top while humidifying it, but I'm not certain that would 'take' on a permanent basis.   Has anybody here had success in raising a sunken top?

[Greg Mirken]

Your store will have to decide whether this guitar is salable, but what I would usually do with marginal instruments like this is get them playable and stable and donate them to a local church youth pastor. Some kid who otherwise wouldn't have a guitar is happy, and I got a charitable tax deduction.