Major heel break :: Rickenbacker 4001 bass

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A pretty gnarly heel break on a 1987 Rickenbacker 4001 stopped in this morning. The player admits he's pretty rough on his bass but has no idea how this happened. He just opened the case one day and ~!!!BAM!!!~ found this carnage. 

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He did mention he left it in a hot car once, so extreme heat could have helped pop the neck apart.  It came in strung to pitch and when I went to slacken the strings the neck immediately fell backwards.  The neck was only held to the body by a thin slice of wood.  Yikes!

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That thin slice of wood ran up the neck like a wave, so the trick was figuring out how to clamp this piece down.  The heel itself was straight forward, but how to go about that piece running up into the neck ...

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I ended up wrapping a large industrial rubber band around the crack running up the neck first and then the clamps.  The rubber band worked out extremely well and saved me from fitting a time consuming caul.  Rubber bands to the rescue!

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Seagull S6 Quantum I [4.9 lbs] :: setup

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A Canadian built Seagull acoustic in for some tweaks.  After straightening the neck, the saddle had to be shimmed up to improve the action.  There is an undersaddle pickup so any modifications to the saddle require the consistent string-to-string output be verified and corrected if necessary.

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2015 Fender Stratocaster [8.6 lbs] :: setup

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A new Strat in for a setup.  The player does not use the vibrato bar so the bridge adjusted flush with the body similar to a hard tail.  One bummer was that the truss rod nut seemed to be a little stripped from either the factory or music store.  Making adjustments was a little sketchy as it was tough to get a solid bite with a standard Allen wrench.

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Crack on back :: 2006 Tacoma RM6C [4.6 lbs]

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The center seam on the back was open and needed to be glued and supported.  Most acoustic guitars have an internal "seam strip" that reinforces the glue joint of the two halves of the back.  This model does not so I needed to fit and install a couple to keep the joint closed.  One ran from the neck block to the first brace and another between the first and second back braces.  Note that Tacoma uses an upper bout soundhole so these repairs were a little more difficult to pull off versus a traditional soundhole.

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Spotty fretwork :: Allen Eden 335-style [8.1 lbs]

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An import 335 style semi-hollow in for some setup tweaks.  Mediocre fretwork is often par for the course on imports with uneven frets and sharp ends.  We decided to tap down the high frets and dress the ends to improve fretting up the neck.  The player uses this guitar for chord-melody style (ie Joe Pass) and strings it with flats

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