So my father, who knows nothing at all about guitars, calls me up on the phone and tells me that he "found" a guitar leaning up against a dumpster near his house so he grabbed it for me in case it was something I wanted to play with. Like I need another project... I've been buying, selling, and repairing guitars and amps for nearly 40 years so I always have plenty of "projects" going.
I didn't know what to expect so the next time I'm over at his house, he brings out this guitar. I immediately noticed that the scale was a bit longer than normal. It has nothing on the headstock but looked like there was a badge near the top at one time. My immediate impression was that this was a Teisco or some derivative brand. I had never seen this exact model before but it just had that Teisco "look" to it.
It has 4 pickups and lots of switches, dials, and knobs - all this seems to be in decent shape. There were only 3 strings on it. All of the tuners were there (loose but there) and 3 of the plastic bushings were missing. I also noticed that the tailpiece which is some sort of tremolo/vibrato unit was missing at least one spring and maybe some other parts.
A closer inspection revealed some significant neck issues. The fingerboard seems to be loose of the neck in many areas with a crack over 1mm showing and the nut is completely loose. It is not obvious if the truss rod is broken or not either but the neck is significantly back bowed - again only 3 strings on it at this point.
Without removing the pickguard/electronics assemblies, the only sort of identification on the guitar is a silver label on the back of the headstock that says Model No. VN-4.
So I did a quick web search and low and behold up comes some info on a Teisco VN-4 and the photos positively identify it. It seems to have been made in the mid-60s and the model is apparently associated with Houndog Taylor.
A week later I attended the Orlando guitar expo hoping to find some additional information and possibly some parts. I actually did pick up some tuner bushings but could not find a suitable tailpiece. I also found an identical VN-4 in excellent condition for sale at the show. The dealer wanted $495 and it never sold but at least I got to see what the tailpiece was supposed to look like.
So at this point, it is on my project list but not quite at the top yet. I've got a couple of amp restorations ('66 VibroChamp and a '60 Tweed Princeton) to finish before I can really dig into this guitar.
Obviously, the neck is the biggest risk. If I cannot fix the neck, it may not be worth it to try and restore the guitar. I don't know if I can find a replacement neck for it at a decent price but I definitely don't want to invest any significant time or $ before I can make a determination on the neck.
The fingerboard has definitely popped up off of the neck. This could be due to someone way over-tightening the truss rod although I've never seen this before. I suppose if someone was trying to maintain this guitar at standard E-E pitch with standard guage strings, the tension could be great enough to require the truss rod to be overtightened. I have not tried to move the truss rod yet so I have no idea if it is tightened or broken.
The guitar does not look like it was wet or over humidified. the neck is back-bowed and there is a 1mm crack along both sides between the rosewood and the maple. I may use a steamer and a putty knife to try and remove the fingerboard entirely in order to see what is going on - not sure yet what I'm going to do. I guess the first step is to try and relax the truss rod and see if it moves. Either way, I will need to re-glue the fingerboard and dress the frets (best case) or replace the frets (worst case).
In any case, this a really cool old guitar and the fact that it is a baritone makes it even cooler - I'd really like to restore it to good playing condition. A replacement neck would be the easiest way to get there but so far (in the last month or so) I have not been able to locate one for this guitar.
Any comments or ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.