Bowed neck fix?

c0mptar2000

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I just received a Lanikai LU-21B baritone reject that I got off of ebay for $40. It was a gamble as I had no idea what was going to be wrong with it or if it was going to be perfect. Anyhow, the neck has a slight back bow and frets 2-4 are buzzing especially on the third string. I pretty much eliminated about 90% of the buzzing by raising up the saddle and tuning the uke up a half step, however, I'd like to have a standard tuning and I can't really raise the saddle up much more.

Is there any way I can heat up the neck and bend it or fix this somehow without taking it to a luthier (not worth it)? Any high tension strings or alternate tunings that would help eliminate the buzz? (It has DGBE Aquilas with wound 3rd and 4th right now) It sounds decent and I'd like to keep it and spend a bit more fixing it rather than taking a $40 loss if possible.

Thanks!
 
Are you willing to remove the fretboard (not an easy task for a beginner) ?

I've never done this and the experienced luthiers know more than I do, but I might be tempted to either:

1) make a new fretboard that levels the playing surface or
2) remove the fretboard, force the neck straight, rout a groove, epoxy a graphite rod in place, reapply the fretboard. Or a new fretboard since I probably destroyed the old one in the process of removing it.
 
I did the same thing and got a baritone and a tenor. The tenor had a bow around fret 5,6 . I made 3 cuts in the back of the neck clamped it straight and glued and doweled the neck. I had to put a shim under the saddle and now it plays fine.
 
Are you willing to remove the fretboard (not an easy task for a beginner) ?

I've never done this and the experienced luthiers know more than I do, but I might be tempted to either:

1) make a new fretboard that levels the playing surface or
2) remove the fretboard, force the neck straight, rout a groove, epoxy a graphite rod in place, reapply the fretboard. Or a new fretboard since I probably destroyed the old one in the process of removing it.

3) Say to heck with it, and buy another uke.
 
I did the same thing and got a baritone and a tenor. The tenor had a bow around fret 5,6 . I made 3 cuts in the back of the neck clamped it straight and glued and doweled the neck. I had to put a shim under the saddle and now it plays fine.

This is easier than my idea
 
I did the same thing and got a baritone and a tenor. The tenor had a bow around fret 5,6 . I made 3 cuts in the back of the neck clamped it straight and glued and doweled the neck. I had to put a shim under the saddle and now it plays fine.

Could you post a picture or diagram of what you did exactly? I'm still a little bit confused. I'm a bit new to ghetto lutherie. I'm not too worried about ruining the uke as it was cheap and is already broken-ish.
 
You can "dress" the frets with some 350 grade sandpaper glued to a flat block of wood. Most backbows can be dealt with pretty effectively by leveling the frets, for which there are many expensive tools marketed with high tech names, but really all you are doing is taking the strings off, marking the frets with marker and running the sanding block (which should be very flat) over the frets evenly to see where the high frets (and therefore neck bow) are. Then sand the frets (all of them) focusing on the problem areas. Almost all ukes have a flat (not radiused) fretboard, which make them much easier to effectively level. Once you get the frets as level as you can, some progressively higher grades of fine sandpaper will smooth them out.

This is a quick explanation of a fairly complex endeavor that has a lot of "feel" involved in it, but it sounds like your investment wouldn't be a huge loss if it really didn't work out, and you probably can't make it worse as long as you are careful and even handed with your sanding efforts. There have got to be some youtube vids or other abundent sources of internet info regarding this process. At the least you would probably learn something.

Often the neck isn't really bowed, its just some really poorly installed fretwork or the fretboard itself is bowed. I would always look at what can be compensated for by working with the frets before removing a fretboard or trying to bend a neck.

I have done this kind of work on literally hundreds of ukes and brought a very high percentage of them back to playable condition with very little effort. I recently had four boxes of rejected ukes from a local distributor that would have been destroyed. They came from a friend who was doing after school uke lessons for elementary students at a local school. I think out of 16 ukes only 2 didn't come around, and she was able to donate them to the young children who couldn't afford to get their own uke to practice on. These, once again, where ukes that had been deemed so terrible that they would have been destroyed.

Anyhow good luck, I bet you can do it. Search out some fret leveling vids and let the healing begin! (or maybe destruction I guess......)
 
To add to what Johnny GDS said - any uke that can't be brought around by dressing the frets is pretty rare. However, unless you plan on doing this a lot you don't want to spend much on tools. A flat, reasonably rigid, sanding board can be made by cutting a section of appropriate length from one of those inexpensive plastic spirit levels from Home Despot or Lowes - the ones that are like thick plastic I-beams two- or four-feet long. To make sure you get a flat one - lay it on the table of one of the nearby table saws in the store and make sure that it neither rocks nor shows daylight in the middle. (Most of them are flat - I've only seen one or two that weren't.)

Take it home and cut it so it is about as long as the fretboard on a soprano uke, then use trim adhesive to glue sandpaper to the sides. I glue around 320 grit wet-or-dry paper on one side and 600 on the other. One side for leveling the frets, the 600 grit side for polishing them after.

Use a black magic marker to mark the tops of the frets, then begin sanding. Sand only enough so that all of the tops of the frets are shiny (black marker removed). If in doubt, reblacken the frets and try again. However, don't take the frets any lower than absolutely necessary. As you lower the frets you are also flattening the tops, and too much of this introduces both intonation problems and even string buzzing.

Once the frets are level - examine them closely. Any that look flat across the top need to carefully be rounded again. It's best to do this with a fret file, but fret files are not cheap. It can be accomplished with a bit of 320 or 600 grit wet-or-dry paper worked laterally along the sides of the frets to round them over. This requires a great deal of patience.

Once the above is done, when strings are installed and the uke is tuned up to pitch, it will usually pull just enough relief into the neck to make it playable.

Note that all of the above is a lengthy, tedious, process (especially if you have to recrown the frets using sandpaper). Unless your time is worth absolutely nothing, or you really enjoy this sort of thing, you are far better off to use the uke for kindling to start a fire to sit beside while you are playing the new uke you bought to replace it! :biglaugh:

John
 
I bought one of these baritones and was able to make it playable by leveling the frets as has been suggested.
 
I'm in the same boat - bought 5 gamblers specials (baritones) from Butler music and they all have back bow to varying degrees - I think I can fix one by leveling the frets, but the rest are really out there. Any ideas short of taking off the fretboard?
 
I have used a diamond sharpening "stone" as a fret leveler . it is perfectly flat and just the right length. sandpaper probably would work as well.
 
I've got a fret leveling file (I've fixed several ukes this way) - but the bow on 4 of the 5 would leave me with no frets left if I go that route.
 
If the bow is not huge you could pull the frets, plane or sand the board flat, then re-fret. I'd deepen the slots where you're removing wood *before* they are sanded away.

Admittedly your fretboard will then be thinner in the middle than the ends, but who else will notice?
 
End nippers with the cutting end ground so that it can get under the fret. Research refretting before you attempt a refret job. This bargain uke is a good one to learn on. I'm no luthier but I've found knowing about frets and fretting has increases my enjoyment of guitars, ukes and banjos greatly.
 
I tried heat on a baritone but I may not have heated enough. It felt warm. I am trying to fix a bow forward. I put it on clamps and just left it. I use to build 3 and 4 string cbg's and never used heat, just clamped the neck for a week or two. Anyone have any luck?
 
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