Gibson '68 345 Twisted Neck - advice needed.

[fieldsroyal]

Greetings all - my old 1968 345 seems to have a twist in its neck - falls away towards the treble side of the neck up near frets 1-2 - definitely affects playability - i always felt the guitar was "fighting me" despite its beautiful thin neck - a workmate pointed out the "twist" to me....
- it's a beautiful guitar - the original pickups wail and scream as they should and the neck is thin and fast - picked it up in 1996 for princely sum of $1400 AUS - so i'm happy to spend a bit on it!
- lots of niggling defects though
- the neck twist;
- some of the parralellogram inlays are chipped - others are lifting thus greatly affecting playability (gouged fingers not uncommon)
- frets are quite low -
I guess the inlay can be replaced and frets replaced - it's more the neck I'm worried about.....advice? please ?

 

[Soapbarstrat]

.....falls away towards the treble side of the neck up near frets 1-2 - definitely affects playability...

So it looks somewhat like this ? :

http://www.otheroom.com/NAMM03/images/guitars/Burrell3.jpg

Neck in that photo was built twisted like that on purpose. Luthier named Burrell does 'em like that. He might even have a patent on it.

Of course on an old neck, there's probably uneven frets from wear and other dips and rises in the fretboard that can make it play like crap.

 

[fieldsroyal]

wow now that's a twist!!! Mine twists in same way but a bit less noticeable - I'm going to try to put some photos of the 68 up tonight.

 

[guitarman_1]

Ive had a few Gibsons with a neck twist. Sadly its not an inexpensive fix.
You will need a re-neck, or best case the board planned to compensate for the twist, and that is not the best way, but its the least intrusive repair.

 

[Dana Olsen]

Ive had a few Gibsons with a neck twist. Sadly its not an inexpensive fix.
You will need a re-neck, or best case the board planned to compensate for the twist, and that is not the best way, but its the least intrusive repair.

Or depending on how extreme the twist is, you can pull the frets and sand the offensive part down (GRIN - I like that - the offensive part) and then refret and relevel.

It's a big job no matter how you approach it, but if the twist isn't too extreme and the fretboard's not too thin, sanding can go a long way toward correcting the problem. Then when you level the frets, you take the twist into consideration and take a little more fret off from the troubled area.

All this, of course, is dependent on how twisted the neck is. Obviously the greater the twist, the more likely it is you'll have to reneck.

Hope this helps, Dana O.

PS - I have an old Esquire with this problem, but a pretty mild version. I gig it every week, it's just annoying on the first 3 frets on the top strings.