Bizman62

First, why epoxy is not the answer: Aside from what you already told, how would you make sure the neck won't move while curing? A tight neck pocket keeps the neck in the desired position during gluing. Even tightening the clamp will rotate the neck in a loose pocket. And aside of pictures, it would be nice to know what tools you have access to. A router would make the fix pretty easy, a large chisel might also help in cunning hands. Thinking of it, there is a way to use epoxy to fix a loose neck joint. Simply fill the entire pocket with epoxy, possibly using a sacrificable block in the middle to save epoxy, and finally reroute the pocket. Ugliness guaranteed, unless you can make it a river table type feature.

Sanded it clean and redid it - twice! This is now as good as I can get it, some lacquer should take care of the rest. The colours should match as good as they can on different woods. For a moment I toyed with the idea of dying the bottom side Cherry Red to match the back of the body but fortunately the other builders persuaded me not to! I'm going to apply lacquer on the headstock and use Crimson Guitar Finishing Oil for the neck.

That's the kind of creativity I like! Do with what you have instead of spending time and money for a tool you only need once.

Are the two last pictures really of the same stage, only with a different light and background?

"spray"? Unfortunately that is no option at this point. Stunning Stains wiped on with a piece of an old t-shirt...

Well, that would actually not have helped as I only used one colour and tried to fade it. And now that I'm thinking about it, you told in another post that a drop of water in alcohol would increase the "open time". And yet another thing I noticed, I could have moistened the entire area for a smoother fade! Most importantly, I should have stopped right after the first strokes!

If I only could have read this in the morning! I resanded mine and redid it and I'm still not happy!

So I did like instructed and the idea is solid. But I'm not quite happy with the result, it's clogged in the dip behind the fretboard and in certain light it looks like dried baby poo. Problem was it didn't want to take dye like I wanted it to. Another issue arose with the added width: The grain doesn't match at all, I must have glued the piece sideways or backwards, or it may even be of a different type of maple - American rock maple vs. European sycomore. Anyhow, it sucks dye like end grain! Guess I'll let it sit for a while and then wipe the excess off with alcohol. Then let it dry properly again and apply a little darker brown amber to the very edge to hide the crack at the curve. That was caused by the vise when I clamped it to the workbench at an early stage. Steam and heat brought the bruise up but it seems to suck dye as well.

The way I do it, I couldn't do that since its all lacquer, if I tried to wipe anything off with thinner, the whole entire job would come off. Note that there was a properly dried layer of lacquer (actually 2k) over which I sprayed a thin mist of the same and while that was still wet, sprayed the alcohol based dye. And wiped it all off when it was still wet. I can't remember if I actually had already sprayed the sealing clear coat over the dye, anyhow all of it was still wet when I wiped it off.

Ooh, a major fix followed by a minor fix and the fretboard looks level at the neck joint! I guess I might just have glued and clamped the fretboard on the top, believing and hoping that the spruce and the bracing would retain their original state... And most likely ended up with a bumpy upper bout and a hump at the 14th fret followed by a slope towards the sound hole. Well done!

So you rubbed the walnut first and then similarly rubbed the cherry, mixed with the same solvent? And the transition just came that smooth? Or did you apply the cherry all over the top as the edge looks much darker in the lower picture?

When I used that method for the first time the burst was going to be wayyy too deep and since I noticed it already during the spraying I simply took a rag and thinner and wiped the dye and the shader coat off. That is, if by shader coat you meant the thin layer of wet lacquer to act as sort of an adhesive for the dye.

I feel you, I've struggled with similar issues with my current build. So I ended up with a burst which left most of the patterns visible

Now that's a good start already, very nice wood!

You mean on the upper face of the headstock only? Like so:

Thanks for sharing your thinking process about the colours, that's really mind-opening to read!

I fully agree that the material costs for plywood are a fraction compared to carved. My question is, could a small manufacturer afford the machinery. Back in 1963 the German Wirtschaftswunder had a major drawback due the depression which most likely affected the guitar manufacturing as well. As Hopf had been known for carved acoustics before jumping on the rock'n'roll train I wonder what their production numbers have been before and after. Most likely we're talking about hundreds rather than thousands of guitar a year!

Add to that the War Reparations, dismantled or destroyed factories, patents and intellectual property confiscated by the Allies. That sure was a big boost to American economy!

Now that we know how the body is going to look, I wonder if I should add colour to the headstock as well or leave it natural. There's quite a lot happening in the neck, the buttons and brass pins as markers and the different coloured lams... A burst might tie it to the body but then again theres the stripes and the carving... Heck, traditional Fenders had plain maple necks! And Gibson painted their headstocks! Argh! Opinions, please.

I wonder how big or small a company Hopf was during the 60's. I mean, would it be profitable for a one man company to get a lam press? I know absolutely nothing about their pricing but for what I've seen in the Höfner video the machine is pretty big. And by the looks I'd say it had been used for decades before the video was filmed. Based on the Jazzgitarren site the German guitar manufacturing was more or less about smaller companies who bought services from each other, stamping the brand according to which of them got the big order. Then again, who knows if several small companies used the same lam press, stacking tops on their shelves for the next few months? Also, as the current Hopf employs half a dozen people, wouldn't they have grown bigger with effective mass production? The production in Europe must have been very small compared to USA or even Britain, there's no iconic brands outside Höfner basses and even that is just because a certain Paul used one. The Italian Eko (whose manufacturing also seems to have been split among several companies) is the only European brand I can remember from my youth being somewhat common here, the rest was either the two big American names or the Japanese ones like Yamaha, Cimar, Kawai and later Ibanez. For what I've heard the local youth bands here built their own electric guitars in the sixties, I've even seen one. Supposedly post-war Germany was pretty much struggling with similar issues, making do with what they had. Interesting models but small production - that's why they're collectors items now! Just as a proof of local building having been a must, legend tells that the first Fender Stratocaster in Britain was bought as late as 1959 after the import law was abolished, by one Harry Webb as a gift to his friend Brian Rankin who played guitar in his band.

Solid comments about profitable building, no arguing about those. For clarification, when I talk about a carved top in this very model, I don't mean an acoustically carved top like on arch top jazz guitars. I'm talking about a thick slab of wood that has been hollowed in the inside and carved on the outside. Making a hollowed body is common practice, so why can't you just make a similar top? I've done that on one of my builds. It was a through-neck but it could even more easily have been a set neck or bolt-on. Someone here experimented recently with a sunk-in top where the body was larger than the top. Couldn't they have made something similar in the 1960's, hiding the seam under the chrome band? Just guessing here, however that would be easy to do without a laminating press. The natural Saturn posted earlier has a 3 piece top which might be a bit difficult to laminate - or then not, I'm no expert. Anyhow, it's easy to find three suitable pieces of 5" planks in a pile of construction wood compared to dedicated single or two piece guitar tops. On the video it shows that there's a silvery band surrounding the body, another place where you could hide a seam.

Makes me think of a knitting hook with all that smoothness! Not a bad thing, on the contrary. The main thing with that is how it blends in with the rest of the top.

An auction site said that the body would be mahogany. Without having a real Hopf Saturn 63 to study everything is speculation. There seems to be no "how it's built" reviews that are very common with the major brands. We all know how a LP looks like when cut into half... Spruce is a common wood also in Germany especially in the mountainside so it's relatively cheap. Also the Hopf family has a long tradition in making handmade instruments. The current factory was founded in 1909 but the history goes down to 1669 so I guess "high end" and carving have been the norm similarly to Gibson. Again just speculation, they may have lowered their standards in the 1960's to supply the demand.

Well... There's always use for a metal tube. Fretboard markers was the first thought, then after remembering they're stainless steel I started thinking about tools like hole punches, plug drills etc. Those may require some heating and quenching but that shouldn't be too difficult with a blow torch. Hexagonal knobs seem to be hard to find, either it's those with more rounded caps or heptagonal like those on J-bass. Similarly the scales only seem to go from 0 to 100 instead of 10.

Most likely yes. I'm tempted to say it's a thick block carved hollow because the edges are so heavily rounded. That construction would make carving the bottom easy as well. As @Drak said, "Just make the call that is Best For You. Centerblock, great. Do it. " The Jazzgitarren link was an interesting read about German guitars of that era. It seems the German builders were co-operating more or less, using the same hardware and copying design ideas like the tear shaped sound hole from each other. Thus making your own decisions is true to the tradition!