Official Luthiers Forum!

No, it's not about Volkswagen!
A sweet 72 year old lady brings in her Hopf arch-top, which she's owned and played for 50 years, asking me to replace a broken saddle and the broken off tailpin.
The adjusters for saddle height are also missing I noticed, but the action's in the ball park anyway.
At the same time I pointed out to her that the strings run off the edge of the end of the the fingerboard, to the bass side, by maybe 0.1", thinking that the tailpiece has had a knock or something. Her only remark was maybe that had something to do with the saddle breaking.
So today I removed the old saddle, make a new one, plane the saddle support and the base of the bridge flat so they mate properly, fit grubscrews in place of the adjusters to locate the 2 pieces of ebony correctly, shape the bottom of the bridge to fit to the top, and turn my attention to the displaced tailpiece.

I remove it, draw a pencil line at right angles to the edge of the bench and offer up the tailpiece to it.

Hmm.... Not much out of true there, so I place a rule down the centre line of the fretboard and find 50 years worth of crud of course and.....

The fb is a good 1/2" out of line with the middle of the butt end.
Scratch head, check the neck joint - solid as the proverbial rock, so offer up the tailpiece and check my sums to confirm all this.

So it appears that this guitar was built, bought, played (toured Europe and Africa) for 50 years with the neck so far out of alignment that the bass E string path went right over the edge of the fb end by 0.1".
So, Vorsprung Durch Technik and all that, I'm off for dinner, a cold one and a sleep, enough for today!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Not at all sure what I'm seeing here...

Hit submit button instead of preview, had to finish post, I beg your indulgence Sir!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Having owned several German cars, tools, and worked on too many German guitars, the only thing left that amazes me is that these problems come as a surprise to anyone.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I second what David says but only in the auto realm. I only have experience with the autos. After close to 30 years of collision work on most every make and model, the European stuff was the most ill-constructed crap we had to repair. The techs would literally scatter and hide when they saw anything Mer-volks-audi-saab-volv-porsche-jag-bmw coming through the front door of the shop. Nothing but crickets......

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jw ( o)===:::

Joe, don't get me started on my Mercedes....

Pure, complicated, stupidity.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Yeah...but at least the parts are reasonably priced

This old Hopf is considered a crappy cheap guitar here in germany, something on the level of a Kay or a cheap Harmony. Not even a student grade Gibson or so, just pure cheap Bull puckie. Like most (notall) of the older german guitars. There are high quality bulit geman Archtops, mostly from single working luthiers, like Lang, Seifert, Rodger, just to name a few.....

So this is not a Volkswagen, it is more a Trabant or a Wartburg....

Cheers, Alex

That's about what I figured...
As far as cars, they are all crap. They get lousy mileage (pick a car, they all get the same 23 mpg-avg or if you have a pig, 10). Sure the Prius gets 50 when it's new, but...mine got 42 when I sold it.
Bodies are like tin cans, paint falls off, rust, half the parts are foreign anyway.
I've had 5 VW's in my life. the first was a used beetle and ran a few years before falling apart. All the others (Super Beetle, 2 Passats, both over 150,000 and a GTI) ran fine and required no maintenance except usual. All sold used. My Chrysler Town and Country broke down several times, Honda was OK, Toy Auto Camry dents and scratches just looking at it.
Take a look around. There's an awful lot of Jetta's out there...

Hmmm. I've got a 94' Mercedes E420 with close to 300K miles on it. I am the third owner of the car but know the second owner very well and as far back as I can tell that car has had zero problems outside of ordinary wear and tear for it's entire life. (knocks on wood) she's definitely showing her age now.

But anyway, I did reset a Hofner Bass neck and it was one of the ugliest neck joints I've ever come across.

Well, the Hopf is now ready.
Tailpiece re-positioned, old holes filled, broken tail pin replaced with a Snakewood one, new saddle (bone instead of celluloid), the 2 halves of the bridge mated properly (no adjusters with it or needed, just used grubs screws to locate the two halves), bridge fitted properly to soundboard, fret ends no longer sticking out, frets polished, tuners secured (3 stripped screws, the rest loose) - oiled tuners, oiled fret board, set-up with new strings, hoovered the dust out of the body and a good wipe down.
Sweet as a nut, rings like a bell, and loud.
She's not going to recognize it soundwise.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Dude! We need pics of the finished work ! That all amazing A/B comparison. That is, if you have not delivered the instrument to the owner yet...

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If thee meddle with dragon kin, thou will become crunchy and good with ketchup.

Exactly! I was going to post the same!

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jw ( o)===:::

Not much to see really. No before pics taken.
I was only asked to make a new saddle and replace the snapped off tail pin (I just sawed off the broken part flush, drilled a hole in the well stuck/cemented tail pin remnant, threaded it and put in a SM screw-in one.
You'll get some idea of the TLC this had prior to coming to me from the pic of the old saddle.


Hole under the treble side had a twin on the bass side until the end snapped off (probably because of it)

Tailpiece I just moved over to line things up, as the cost of repairing the neck misalignment would be far more than it's worth.
Same for the slots worn in the bridge by the stings (all of them, but bass E was the worst) making a new one wasn't practical.
This is just a well worn guitar of sentimental value, and still played after 50 years together. I gave her a loan guitar so she wouldn't get withdrawal symptoms.... Note the wear on the back of that tree trunk they call a neck.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I got a 1981 Argentine Mauser rifle... made in Germany. Great piece of engineering, and shoots really well considering that this thing is over 120 years old.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com