Re: String height on Oscar Scmidt 12-string bowlback
My dos centavos: i don't think it is a neck issue, but a top issue. The side detail photo looks like the top is caving in a bit north of the soundhole--a pretty common problem with bowlbacks from my experience, due to age, overstringing or just bad design as mis amigos have noted.
Martin, Vinaccia and Embergher all added a stiffener plate between the neck block and northernmost top brace to help counteract this. Why this wasn't SOP for all builders, I don't know. Embergher added some braces E and W of the soundhole (on some examples at least) to obvious little effect on the sound quality. If it is good enough for Martin, Vinaccia and Embergher...well. I add these to my bowlbacks as a precautionary measure before problems arise and recommend it wholeheartedly.
Our friend (accessible here), Jake 'the Snake' Wildwood would be the man to contact even if he is a full continent away from Wyoming. He's a chiropractor with odd neck resets. My guess is that OS was using a dovetail neckjoint which would make such radical surgery much more accessible. (I'd still add the Martin / Embergher belts and suspenders.) IIRC he's performed John 11:1-44 on a few OS mandolins by now.
The fretboard shim seems like the most expedient solution, though without the top stiffening described above you are playing roulette Russe. I've been there with a couple Washburns and they are muy mucho stouter than OS. If you dig it, take the time and dinero to get it working right. Call Jake.
Jake has turned more than a few sow's ears into silk purses as we have all been witness too. I dream of the day Jim Garber and I can sit back and buy Jake and John M a sequence of beers (ales?) and let them swap licks on their repair stories while we smile and nod.
I've never really gotten the appeal of these 12 strings but I dig people who have.
Mick
Ever tried, ever failed? No matter. Try again, fail again. Fail better.--Samuel Beckett
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