Hi,

I bought about week ago a fender lone star starocaster second-handed. Unfortunately I discovered that its neck is curved. Guitar is only five months old, so I assume that it must be manufacturing defect.

So what should I do?

Sounds like your guitar needs a set up. Chances are rare that it's a manufacturing defect. Guitar necks are made outof wood, and wood changes depending on the season, temperature, humidity. I bet the previous owner didn't take care of the guitar.

Your Strat has a truss rod to deal with these changes. Or if by "curved" you mean a neck twist, you better get some professional help with the neck.

Take your guitar into the shop for a full set up. Or if you feel like doing it yourself go here: http://www.fender.com/support/stratocas ... _guide.php

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

Hi Sprite, welcome to the Forum.

Adding to what metropolis74 says: it entirely depends what you mean by "a curve". That could cover a multitude of different possibilities - far too many to cover them all here.

Tell us a lot more about it and post some pictures if you can get good ones that show the issue clearly and we can help more.

There are a couple of things that really do mean the neck is junk. But most stuff can be successfully solved, even if it seems very serious. So at this stage we can be hopeful...

Cheers - C

By curved I mean that "neck twist". Perhaps these photos may help: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48935456@N08/

Not very good photos, but I think that you can see the point from those.

All I can see from these is the rise of the nut on the bass side. The photo really needs to come from the other side of the guitar, body looking up to nut. If you look at the rosewood tuner side of the nut and try to eye that up to the 21/22 fret area it doesnt look too bad. Like you say bad photo throwing the eye off though.


If it is twisted its a job for a luthier (not a tech, a builder not a repairer) and some clamps and some heat.

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No no and no

Maybe I should explain a bit how it is "curved". When looking from body to nut, left side of the neck is little convex, as it should be. But when looking the right side of neck, it is almost straight. That causes frets 6-10 from G, B and E strings to buzz.

A slight difference from side to side across the fretboard is normal. The reason is that your string tension isnt balanced. Consequently the treble side of the fretboard suffers more tension than the bass side. This can result in a very minor difference over time.

Whatever I dont think your going to get far discussing it online mate. It's a hands on job to assess it and difficult to repair. Time to take it in for repair.

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No no and no

Wow.

For sure, more photos would help. But just on the basis of that one it does look a pretty dramatic twist to me.

I've done humps in necks but not a twist like that - it's beyond my pay grade.

I feel I've seen Dan Erlewine talking about how this is remedied but it is not in The Guitar Player Repair Guide and I'm not seeing it in his Trade Secrets news letters either. So I can't put my finger on what the solution might be - and in any case it is a job for someone who seriously knows what they are doing with it.

I'll spare their blushes and not name them, but there's a couple of people on this Forum who might have more to say, though essentially I am sure this is not a a DIY repair. As Niki says, this one has to go to a properly qualified and equiped luthier. Properly qualified means he's fixed this successfully before, hopefully a few times. Ask about that before entrusting this to just any old shop tech.

And check the cost first too. It may well be cheaper to just source a replacement neck. That's the beauty of bolt-ons, after all.

Good luck with it - C

It's sure that neck is "curved" in a bad way. So is there any chance that Fender would somehow recompense curvature of the neck? What do you think? Remember that guitar is only about five months old and I have own it only for two weeks.

Maybe I should contact guy who sold me that thing. He is some old guy, so I am not surprised that he didnt notice bad condition of neck.

Does fender have some kind of "neck recycling" where they take bad necks and change them to new?

Your only course of action is to go back to the original seller. Fender warranty isnt transferable between owners. It is only valid for the original owner. He has to return it to a fender dealer with his receipt of purchase.

I'd say (could very well be wrong) that you dont have much chance of getting satisfaction on a 2 month old guitar you bought 2nd hand.

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No no and no

So if I give guitar back to original owner, he still have warranty and he can use it to get new guitar/new neck? Receipt and all what came with guitar are safe.

Not the most honest course of action.

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No no and no

Its supposed to be that way. If you think about it, the tops of the strings remain level as do the bottoms. In that way your path across the top of the strings while playing remains level, as does the compression distance - due to increasing sting diameter. It also helps to prevent the high E from slipping off of the fret board while playing and bending. Most of the fender necks made in the modern era are made the same way. It's basically a transverse compound radius. It just needs to be set up properly.

You don't have to take my word. This forum is full of similar threads. It just seems that Fender doesn't do a very good job of educating, leaving the customer to rely on each other.

BTW - your photo shows the "level string tops and compression distance" that i was talking about perfectly.

Hi j-boyhwy1, welcome to the Forum.

Respectfully, no it isn't. That's a badly twisted neck. Sometimes photos are deceptive, but this one isn't.

I wonder what happened in the end with this sixteen month old story? If you're reading this, Sprite, howabout telling us how things turned out with this guitar in the end?

Cheers - C

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