NS X175 a couple of years later - slight problem

Walter Broes

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While I still think the Newark Street guitars are not a bad deal at all - they're cheap, and even cheaper used - I'm wondering if anyone's running into similar developments with theirs :

I have a black one I bought some three years ago, and I've customized it some (Bigsby, tune-a-matic, screwed the bridge base down and put old Franzes on it, and moved the lead pickup to "where it's supposed to sit") and used it quite a bit.
I usually put in a fairly sturdy gig bag, and the couple of times I've been on planes with it, I put it in a case. I don't baby it, but I certainly don't throw it around or treat it rough.

A good friend has a sunburst one he got about a year ago, and we're both running into the same thing : the fretboard extenstion has lifted up to the extent it chokes the strings. Hasn't been a real problem up until recently because my action isn't crazy low, but now I'm getting a fairly bad buzz on the bass strings that I traced to the end of the fretboard extension.
My buddy had exactly the same thing happen to his - he managed to solve the problem by grinding down the last couple of frets, so it didn't need un-fretting/planing/refretting, but it might in the future.

It's a fairly typical thing for archtops with a floating neck extension to happen, but I didn't expect it to happen THIS soon!

I guess it's a difference in humidity between where the guitar was built and where it ended up living that causes this?

Anyone else run into this with their NS X175?
 

JohnW63

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So, the fingerboard extension is sort of curling up a little, but the neck is still where it needs to be ?
 

bobouz

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Fwiw - My 2014 NS Savoy A-150b has a similar extension, and there is only a miniscule amount of lift. Nothing remotely close to what you're describe.

Although this type of lift is quite common, yours has taken it to an extreme. Still, if the overall neck angle has not changed significantly, I would just have the extension shaved down until normal playability is restored.

Best of luck in resolving the issue.
 

Walter Broes

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So, the fingerboard extension is sort of curling up a little, but the neck is still where it needs to be ?
Yes, exactly. It's a common archtop problem as they age, only I didn't expect it to happen *this* early in the guitar's life.

Bobouz, exactly, and we can take it out of the top two frets, which makes the operation easier.

The neck itself hasn't moved at all, it's just the extension that's lifting a little bit.
 

JohnW63

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I didn't know that was a thing that could happen. I guess if it's not glued down, wood can change shape over time.
 

Walter Broes

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I didn't know that was a thing that could happen. I guess if it's not glued down, wood can change shape over time.

Oh, it's almost a given on vintage archtops that at some point you'll have to plane and refret the fretboard extension. It's just what I said already above, me and my buddy having it happen when the guitar still has a hint of factory smell about it is a little (a lot) earlier than I expected.
 

GAD

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Oh, it's almost a given on vintage archtops that at some point you'll have to plane and refret the fretboard extension. It's just what I said already above, me and my buddy having it happen when the guitar still has a hint of factory smell about it is a little (a lot) earlier than I expected.

Any idea what causes it?
 

Walter Broes

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GAD, you mean "in general", or specifically on these new/recent Guild archtops? In general, it's a thing piece of wood floating over the body unsupported, connected to the neck by the fretboard - I'm not a luthier, but I suspect the truss rod getting tightened over the years, and the fretboard shrinking and/or expanding causes that little piece of overhang to move upward - and the mahogany fretboard extension itself can probably shrink and expand too with varying humidity conditions, and as it ages - kind of logical, when you think about it.

If it happens on a fairly new guitar, I'm tempted to (over?-simplify and say "wet wood". I'd think the fretboard shrunk, pulling up the fretboard extension. But again, I'm mostly guessing.
 

JohnW63

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If I were to guess, maybe the fingerboard was not fully cured and dried. I would think the direction is takes is based on the grain pattern. The placement of the fret wires could contribute.
 

DThomasC

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Without actually knowing anything about the condition, my first thought is that it's caused by the fingerboard and the extension changing length at different rates. The only problem with that wild guess is that wood changes dimension very little in the direction of the grain. Even from green to bone dry a piece of wood (fingerboard) hardly changes length at all.

For that to cause a noticeable curve would require not only the fingerboard to shrink but for it to shrink MORE than the extension underneath. If that really was happening then the entire neck would be a banana since it's made from the same materials.

At least that's the way it seems to me. :)
 

Walter Broes

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Sure, and I understand the veer about the "why's" and causes of the phenomenon, this is LTG after all. and again, I don't really know what causes it, I was mostly just wondering if any other NS hollowbody owners were experiencing the same thing.
 

JohnW63

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Mine are two new, I think. I'll pull the NS X175B out of it's case, where is has been waiting for me to sell it, and check.
 

X-170AB

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This is a known issue on vintage arctops, but quite surprising that it would happen on a guitar so "young" as an NS X-175. Its sometimes called "ski slope" syndrome.
 

kakerlak

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Interesting... So, how old are the oldest of these NS-175s? Walter, IIRC, the black ones came out at least a couple years after the model was first introduced. If that's true, yours isn't one of the very oldest ones around. It's funny, you know, I'd tend to place yours in the "safe range" as far as guitar ages are concerned. Seems like a lot of the wood movement issues, if they're the result of green lumber, will pop up in the first year or two, and, beyond that, the "over time" kind of changes from string tension, etc. don't pop up until several years later. I feel like yours is old enough that you wouldn't see a "bad wood" issue pop up this long after it was built, but I agree with you -- it's surprising to see that FB curl show up now. Why don't you get one of those old Supro pickups that screws through the fretboard and mount it with a bigass wood screw to pull the fretboard down into the body, lol?
 

Walter Broes

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Kakerlak, I'm pretty sure my black one is a 2015. My buddy's is "younger", it's a sunburst he bought brand new a little less than a year ago I think. My friend is actually a luthier, and he told me he didn't have to remove frets/plane/refret on the extension, but he managed to grind the two top frets down enough for the height difference to be gone. I'm dropping mine off at his shop as soon as I have the time, and I'll get the last of the mods I was planning done too - CTS pots, switchcraft switch and jack, and a push pull for pickup phase.
 
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