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This is a nice old Hofner 496, early 60s. Not a customer guitar, this one belonged to a family member who had passed - he often told the story of saving every cent from his first job until he could purchase this instrument.




This guitar has had work done in the past that was more about keeping it playable vs staying true to the original style of the instrument. My intent was to see whether it could, without going to any exceptional lengths, be made to look a bit more “original”. As well as to improve playability a little, including maybe a re-fret etc

The main issue is the original (nicely-mop-inlaid, ebony) bridge has at some point replaced with a larger, rosewood bridge. Unsure of what glue was used but there appears to be almost a fillet of it around the bridge perimeter. Like no effort was made to clean squeeze out. Or that the squeeze out was smoothed into a filet like you’d smooth a bead of caulk…



Upon inserting my camera into the soundhole i discovered this:







These … resin-soaked… loosely-woven cloth patches run from the sound hole, over the xbrace and (not original?) bridge plate and all the way down over the first tone bar. Not super apparent in the photos is that the patches are entombed deeply in the resin, which is very thick and features several stalagmites so long and pointy they felt like bridge pins when I first reached inside. The bridge plate seems placed too far back for my liking but considering all the resin the whole setup is probably bomb-proof.

Needless to say, the bridge and whatever is happening inside is one sleeping dog I’ll be letting lie. The guitar actually sounded fine before i removed the strings with the only issues being a slightly under set neck and worn frets. I’ll address both of these.

The cantilever neck is adjustable by a stauffer clock-key mechanism.. just need to find or improvise a tool and see if I can get it working. Neck doesn’t need much to get back in the ballpark. The fretboard is interesting … narrow but width, 7.25” radius, and with very wide fretwire - 0.123” according to my verniers. Zero-fret too.

Im not normally a huge fan of elaborately decorated guitars but this one seems to work for me. Even down to the mother-of-toiletseat-bound soundhole edge.

I would say this. Don't put your camera in there again. Really. Don't.

Apparently they did that through the sound hole? Impressive. A good reason to make tiny sound holes.

I do like the Stauffer style neck mechanism. Makes it easier to dial things in. The neck seems to have no taper on it. Are they all like that?

Fix what is worn, clean it up, and put strings on it.

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Why be normal?

I wonder how much the sound was dampened by all that mess.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Although not original the bridge looks nicely made where there are clearly some skills apparent. I'm trying to find something nice to say so cut me some slack please.

So I was just imagining how one with a gauze/fiberglass cloth preference could get all that epoxy, seemingly ounces of it to stay up there and then it occurred to me that they must have had it turned over and face down.

Regardless this would make a great mule to learn to do fret work. You're right Josh.

In defense of Hofner early Gibsons have lots of snot all over the inside too.

Wow...

Let me see... if some is good, then more must be better... uh, right? A quart outta do it.

Thanks, I'm going to have bad dreams now... you can't just un-see that.

There might be some optical illusion there with the photos. The neck tapers in both thickness and width in the conventional fashion.

You’d think there must be some significant detrimental effect.. it currently sounds good… did it once sound great? We’ll never know.

Turn it upside down first … the standard operating procedure for fibreglass boat repair … so why not guitar too?



Fair enough! Although in seriousness I’m assuming we can’t pin this on our friends at the factory in West Germany. The question is … why was it done?

Catastrophic top failure which necessitated this unusual reinforcement plus the replacement bridge?

Based on the … chaotic appearance of the resin work I’m inclined to think maybe all the reinforcement was added as insurance after another job (bridge reglue or replacement, or new bridge plate) went awry…

I will bet you cash that the reason it was done is because of the top developing a lot of tilt and beginning to fail.

If you look at the picture you posted with the guitar on your bench top there's an distinct bulbous shape directly behind the bridge. And it looks like there's some kind of repair already done that's entombed within the resin on top of the bridge plate.

Thanks Dan, that makes sense. I know for a fact that it’s now at least 15 years since any work was done on the guitar, and the top seems stable so I guess we’d have to say it was a crude but effective fix. Still not the way I’d have approached it

Great forensic analysis Josh. I'm wondering if it will float? Pictures please

Closest width wire to the original 0.123” that I’m seeing is 0.118” from Jescar or Dunlop.

Looks like the bridge saddle was filled at some point and converted to a lefty. That work would certainly be by another hand than the Helpful Henry repair done to the inside.

Is that a 15 fret neck, with a Staufer joint - very interesting design.

I think the angle the photo is taken at is deceptive - it’s 14 frets to the body.

Do you live in Maine by chance? Must have been fixed by a boat builder.