Broken Höfner 461s found in junk shop

[Glenn Jennings]

Hi Guys
Been a while since I have done a post and thought this one will be of interest. My friend Wilbert found a beat up Hofner 461S in a junk shop and picked it up for for scrap value. Was a really lucky find. Hammertone suggested he contact Jay wood and I and we had a bit of a think tank on it before tackling the project. Wilbert had a go at the neck removal but found it too hard so sent to us to see what could be done with it.

The brief from Wilbert was to tidy it up a bit but maintain the passage of time "MOJO" of the piece and to make it playable. So he didn't want all the scrapes and dings taken out.

The neck was badly broken on the join of the heel with A break just above the join and also a vertical break which was probably caused by the two huge wood screws that had been just screwed down to try to hold the neck together which didn't work as the fretboard was resting on the body.

Getting the bits of the neck out in one piece was a mission that was accomplished with hours of wetting the join and working a hot very thin spring steel spatula down the side of the neck join. It was very hard to get out so I made a clamping arrangement that enabled me to get some pressure on the heel. A tap with a padded block of wood and a rubber mallet gave us the start we needed for the clamp to get the rest.

I cleaned the join and cracks and let it thoroughly dry before flooding it with glue. I worked the glue in from all around the breaks until I was sure I had it all covered then clamped it up and glue oozed out in large quantities.

After sanding and inspection the cracks all looked good and tight and well sealed up.

The holes in the fretboard were a bit of a mess as it looks like there were two attempts to screw the thing together with holes on slightly different angles.

Dowels were out of the question as I think the angles would have seen the dowel holes break out into the front of the heel which would be pretty ugly so decided to put two heavy gauge stainless steel wood screws back in there to add some strength back to the heel. To best do this I flooded the holes with epoxy glue as this was a one shot deal. If it breaks again the neck is toast and would have to be completely re- built. The glue would fill any cavities around the screw hole and help to strengthen the internal area and prevent any movement around the screws. Would have preffered a water soluble glue but they don't have the gap filling properties of the epoxy which i think was more important. Wilbert agreed with me on this so we went ahead.

I countersunk the screwholes below the surface of the fretboard. Then routed out the fretboard by half a mm so that I could glue in veneer to hide the screw holes. I levelled the screw holes with epoxy covering the screw heads then glued in the veneer.

The veneer has had multiple coats of tru- oil to grain fill and harden the veneer. It should handle years of playing now.

The headstock was starting to delaminate so treated that to some glue and clamped it up overnight. The joins came good with nice tight lines in the end.

Neck was then sanded and painted.

To maintain the "LOOK" the body was only rubbed down with 1200 wet and dry, the worst dings and down to wood scrapes filled and touched up with some 30 year old black lacquer I had floating around the workshop. Was about about as good a match as I could have hoped for. Only did touch up as this was the brief.

Body was then treated to a cut and polish followed my several coats of MAXWAX which really lifted the overall look of the piece.

Took about 28 hours get her playable and looking "tidy" should be around for another 40 years or more now.

Wilbert has the pickguard and truss rod cover plate and will fit those when or perhaps I should say IF he gets it back hehe. It would look good in MY collection but that isn't a happening thing darn it hehe !!!

[Glenn Jennings]

Hi Guys
Found the neck had a bad bend in it when the strings had been on it for a while abd the truss rod did nothing to take it out so I did what I had to do with the Hofner 459 and clamped a bow in the neck and heated the neck until it was reasonably hot, Tweaked the clamp a little more then left it to cool down to room temperature.

Seems to have worked well as it did on the 459 which is still good a couple of years later.

Photos of her with a final polish and strings on.

[sgosnell]

Nice work.

[Archie]

The Low E has been pulled so far over due to that bridge.

Does it have to be that way to intonate or has it just slipped down?

Nice looking guitar. Hadn't seen one before.

[Skip Ellis]

Cool project! I always liked doing stuff like this when I had a place to do it. I also did all the violin repair for the local school board - they'd bring in bags of parts at the end of the school year and I had to make them into playable fiddles by September. Also lost track of how many Gibson headstock breaks we repaired. Ah, the good old days.

[Hammertone]

The Low E has been pulled so far over due to that bridge.
Does it have to be that way to intonate or has it just slipped down?...

The bridge is a Teller Model 103, which they provided to various West German makers, including Höfner, starting in the early 1950s. It uses six notched pieces of fret wire. They sit in slots cut into the wood, and can be moved side-to-side to set string spread, or placed in different slots to set intonation. The bridge in the photo clearly needs adjustment. Teller still makes this bridge, and Höfner continued to use it until they stopped making archtops guitars @2020.

...Nice looking guitar. Hadn't seen one before.

The guitar is part of the @16" line-up of Höfner archtop models and their variants, built between the late 1940s and 1970s, ranging from the Model 450 to the Model 465. These are easily identified by their specific trim packages. There were a few other models as well, including the slightly smaller Model 449, and a group of @17" (and later @18") archtop models - 4550, 468, 470. Into and after the 1970s, Höfner dropped most of these models, introduced a few other archtop models and designations, and generally made very few archtop guitars.

[Glenn Jennings]

The Low E has been pulled so far over due to that bridge.

Does it have to be that way to intonate or has it just slipped down?

Nice looking guitar. Hadn't seen one before.

Bridge is on that angle for intonation am hopeful that this might change with a bit of playing and settling down. May have something to do with ther flat wound strings the ownwer put on it which were pretty old I think and may not all have come from the same packet.

[Glenn Jennings]

Hi Hammertone
As always your wealth of knowledge astounds me. Have a bit of playing around to do with the bridge yet. I will pass on your comments to Wilbert who owns this piece. He will be interested in the history.

Many thanks
Glenn

[Hammertone]

They are cool-looking guitars.
Nicely done, BTW.
-Does this one have a solid top?
-Date written on the underside of the top plate?
-Does the truss rod work?

Mine:

[Glenn Jennings]

Hi Hammertone
Agree they are cool looking guitars. I got to see this and just had to get her working again to preserve a bit of history. Thanks for your nice comment !! That means a lot coming from you.

I think the top is solid but kind of hard to tell. Interior grain patterns look the same. All the holes are lined with plastic so is just a guestimate. It has a healthy tap tone to it.

Could only find what looked like a 3 or an 8 in ink on the underside of the top. Will have another look when my mate next door comes home as he has better gear for having a look in awkward places.

The truss rod does work to some extent. Am rather loathe to crank it up too much in case I bust something. Am going to make a new bottom section of the bridge to get the action lowered to improve playability. Think the neck moved a little after I checked it twice while the glue was going off and it is a little low. A real shame as i had it spot on on the first and second check. But fixable and not the end of the world. Is playable as she is just want to improve it.

It has 52 to 15 flat wound strings on as best as I can measure it. Are these too heavy for it??

What strings would you reccomend for this piece to get the best sound out of her??

Jay and my 459 guitars are still rocking along nicely. Love that thing. Is just beautiful.

Hope all is well with you and that life is good.

Cheers
Glenn

[pdfiddler]

With the neck problem I would use nothing bigger. then 12s on it.

[Glenn Jennings]

With the neck problem I would use nothing bigger. then 12s on it.

Thanks for the reply to the question. I have gone with 11-52 D'Addarrio Phoshor Bronze coated strings and that has bought the guitar to life compared to the 15-50 flatwounds that were on it. Neck Is holding up ok so far. No sign of any cracking in the finish and the neck has a little less bow in it now.

It is easy to play now and sounds pretty good so a good result I think.

Cheers
Glenn