[crofty191]

So, i cam into posession of this the other day - 1981 date and its not in the best condition.

Truss rod cover missing and the saddle is missing. Any ideas where i can get replacements?

Also, the last person seems to have either wedged or glued one of the pegs into place. I tried to pull it out and part of it snapped off and now its literally stuck. Tried a few tools, and tried to knock it out by banging it through from the inside - to no avail... any thoughts?

should be a great guitar when im done.

thanks guys!

[dadfad]

Older Fender acoustics are much better guitars than newer ones so that one might be worth putting a little time and money into.

Both the saddle and truss-rod cover should be available at stewmac.com. You'll probably have to carve the saddle a little bit to get it how you want it.

That peg probably isn't glued in. (You never know of course what kind of idiot might have done something like that, but I've encountered some REALLY tough ones to get out.

Get all the other pegs out of the way so the tip of that peg sticks out by itself on the underside. Try to tap it out with a small tack-hammer, keeping pressure from your other hand on the top-side bridge area to lessen the possibility of impact cracking or loosening a brace or the top or something.

Worse case scenario if you can't get it out, remove it a little piece at a time from the top-side hole, using an exacto, or a very small drill. If the string is still in there try to pull it through from the inside (if the ball-end is there maybe use a small pair of pliers, or snip the ball-end off and pull it through from the front.

The last thing you want to do (sometimes necessary but try to avoid it) is to force it though from the top. (And then re-dress the taper of the pin-hole (special tool) and use one over-sized pin.)

[eulogy]

re: the stuck peg. My yamaha is pretty prone to that problem as well - I think the slot is a bit too small or something. Two things that I'll do are 1)feeding a string through from the inside to the outside. If you're lucky you'll manage to slip it past the peg until the ball-end sticks on it, and you can lift up the peg just enough to tap out the peg. 2) Let the guitar cool down. Obviously I don't mean that you should slip it in your refrigerator, but I'll often leave my CPX out of its case for the night in a room with the windows opened. The idea is simply that wood expands if it heats up, so a stuck bridge pin will become even more stuck at higher temperatures. I know it sounds as if it wouldn't make much of a difference - and if anyone else told me to cool down the guitar I'd probably be extremely skeptic as well, heh - but it works for me. Your mileage may vary, just my opinion, et cetera.

[ninjato]

way may seem hard to pull becomes much easier and simpler w/ a peg puller.

Most string winders have a notch at the end just for that reason.

Note the notch on top left

[crofty191]

just a bit of an update regarding how this is coming along.

i got a new saddle which i have fitted. i ended up having to literally drill the last peg out of place which has left the hole a little on the big side. strings are now fitted in and im just trying to deal with the truss rod cover. its playable right now and has a lovely deep tone. ill throw a picture on at some point.

[dadfad]

Glad it's coming along. I've encountered some pretty tough pegs before. Pegs that when you try to use a peg-puller just pull right through the plastic notch. Before they had peg-pullers available, I made a puller out of a fork. I removed one of the tines which left a space just the right size to fit around a peg-head. The I bent the remaining tines so that the curvature of the fork was just right as a fulcrum-point to lever the peg straight out. Now of course I have a string-winder/peg-puller in every acoustic guitar case, but once in awhile I'll have to dig out my old one which is stronger than the new plastic ones. And once in a great while I'll come across a guitar that takes some of the more "heroic" efforts as mentioned above to get it out.

My first brand-new acoustic was an early '70s American made Fender. I still have it. It plays well and still sounds good for the niche it's in. Much better than some of the relatively poor quality acoustics Fender has been putting out for the last fifteen years or so. One of my former teachers/mentor/friend Bowling Green John Cephas' (who just died in April) first brand new acoustic was a 1980 Fender he bought to record with for an obscure German label. (Prior to that he'd only been able to afford used guitars.) Older Fenders aren't bad guitars at all.

Anyway, I'm glad you're getting it together. Let us see it when you get it together.