Fender bender - question for Feline

[Philly Q]

I was changing strings on my Tele today, and I decided to loosen the neck screws and straighten the neckplate, which was a bit wonky.  Alarmingly, after only one or two turns I could undo the screws with my fingers - they almost fell out   :( .  This is what I found:




Only one of the neck-mounting holes in the body is in the right place.  The others are wrecked.  Same thing on the neck - it doesn't look so bad but the holes have been distorted by screws going in at the wrong angles:



To be honest, I felt like taking a hammer to the whole thing.  I've never seen anything like it on a Fender.  What complete and utter w@nkers.    But I suppose I should get it fixed.  Could the holes on both neck and body be dowelled, or is that going to leave the whole neck joint very weak?  

I was thinking I might be able to get some of those threaded steel inserts for the neck and attach it with machine screws, but they seem to be very hard to come by.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Phil

[omikl]

You're correct. The holes in the body need drillnig out, dowelling with hardwood dowels and then re-drilling in the correct places. The holes in the neck need drilling out and either dowelling with hardwood or as you say, use the metal inserts, but only of they line up with the new holes in the guitar body ;)

I think Stew-Mac or Allparts carries the neck inserts kit?

[FELINEGUITARS]

You are both right in what you say
Dowelling and redrilling would be a good way to clean that up
I would be more concerned that the screws all seemed loose in the neck - not a good tight secure fixing from the sound of it.
It may also be adversely affecting tone & resonance by a very small amount too- but it all counts.

We recently had to do a dowel and redrill for Antag on this forum
Turned out well!

The neck inserts with machine thread screws can be a good idea in theory
Can be a tad tricky getting the steel/brass inserts into the neck, but the resulting joint can be cranked very tightly

One of my personal guitars - Frankie (the white one with the high heel boot logo) has this done and it is a great sounding axe
Pix below- note these are both axes made prior to BKP existing and feature other brands of pickups, but sound great so I have not messed with them

[Philly Q]

Thanks for the help guys.  :D

I would be more concerned that the screws all seemed loose in the neck - not a good tight secure fixing from the sound of it.
It may also be adversely affecting tone & resonance by a very small amount too- but it all counts.

Yes you're right, it has always been a little quiet (unamplified) and not very resonant, but I put that down to the heavy ash body and the .009 strings it came with (I'm not one for changing strings regularly  :oops: ).

I suppose technically it's still under warranty, but what are they going to do?  Replace the whole guitar?  Send it back to Fender, with me paying the shipping charges there and back?  More trouble than it's worth.

I think all 8 holes need plugging and re-drilling one way or another, and I'm quite keen on the threaded inserts idea.  I spent most of the day yesterday scouring the Web, and the only place that actually sells them as a kit is Vintique, but people on the Telecaster Forum have very bad things to say about Jay Monterose (interesting, because I had a bad ordering experience with another Danny Gatton buddy, Joe Barden  :? ).  Anyway, I ended up looking at hardware retailers and found a couple of places that sell the E-Z Lok stainless steel inserts, one that sells brass ones (and special fitting wrenches) and another that sells oval-head stainless steel machine screws the right length.  So I'm going to end up with enough inserts to do 8 guitars (and enough screws for 50!!)  :lol: .

Ideally, I'd really like to do the repairs myself, and I think I'd be OK with the neck (once I've practiced on some scr@p wood).  However, I really don't think I'd be able to re-drill the body accurately or even find good-quality hardwood dowels.  So I might take a trip down to Croydon sometime if that's OK Jonathan?

(Nice guitars by the way, as always!  :D )

Phil