1924 A2-Z body with replaced neck.

[M Lavelle]

Those would be worth a few bucks. The ones you ordered have the same spacing but not the same orientation. The ones you ordered are worm under. Take a look at Paul Hostetter's page on restoring/rejuvenating old tuners. I don't think anyone sells a replica with that spacing and that worm orientation..

Paul's page here will illustrate the difference in the placement of the plate between worm over and worm under tuners.

Thanks for the links Mike.

I understand the ones I ordered are worm under and took that into consideration along with the
different plate orientation. The mounting holes are all stripped and will need to be plugged anyway.

I have already tried cleaning the tuners and they may work however the worm gears have a considerable
amount of wear. A few have a half turn of slack.

I just want to get it strung up and see how it sounds with the least amount of work.

Then will probably refret it depending on how the neck angle looks strung up to tension.

I think all the possible collector value is out the window, but hopefully will end up with a nice player.

[Capt. E]

I'm not sure what you mean by this?

Do you mean bar frets?

To be honest I was basing my assumption on the appearance of the fingerboard and inlays.

Thanks for all the other info Capt E.

I was just going on the basis of that diamond on the peghead. I would think Gibson was not doing that style of logo after the change to the next design and that the neck may have been constructed back in the mid-forties and left unfinished. So, could they have removed the original fretboard leveled it, installed it on the vintage neck and replaced the frets? Am I thinking too hard about this?

Regardless, it was a wonderful gift to you.

[M Lavelle]

Thank you all for the input.

I am curious to find out the dimension of 20's era snakehead headstock.

I tried the search feature with no luck. Any help is appreciated.

[M Lavelle]

Pretty damn close, but they fit.

[MikeEdgerton]

Just in there, looks pretty good. Lots of folks (manufacturers) through the years ended up cutting a corner off the machines. That is something I find awful.

[William Smith]

Yes they do Mike and thats a bummer, I've seen some gorgeous F style Handel button machines, silver plated and highly engraved that had 1 corner side completely cut off, that was a too bad, shock scenario for me to look at, I would've bought if the cut wasn't there!
Kinda like them Waverly F style tuners that are on evilbay right now! Krazy someone would've rounded the ends of the plates! Nuts!!

[Jeff Mando]

I guess it could be considered a "factory original cut" if that is how they were doing things at that time........

In other words, completely original.......

[M Lavelle]

I had some time to play with my own stuff, so I strung it up and sure enough the neck pulled forward and the cracks opened up slightly at the neck joint.

However I thought the tone was very nice. Actually it was hard to detune and but down.

So this is currently where I am. Next step is to remove the neck.

Any ideas or clues about the white number (70?) that looks like it was written on the fingerboard and then transferred during application to the neck.

I can reset this neck, replace fingerboard, refret (easy way) or the not so easy way and make a snakehead neck.

The only issue I have with restoring with a snakehead neck is that I need the dimensions.

Is this information available or is there a place to purchase blueprints?

I have also thought about trimming down the existing headstock and adding new wings that to duplicate the snakehead headstock however till I source the actual snakehead dimensions I'm not sure if that is possible.

Thanks again
Mark

[MikeEdgerton]

There are blueprints all over. Contact member HoGo with a PM. If he doesn't have them he should be able to send you to the right place.

[M Lavelle]

Thanks Mike. I will contact Hogo if I decide to got that route.

From the looks of this mess I really doubt the replacement neck was done at Gibson unless it was
one of those take your kids to work day and let them swap out a neck for giggles.