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Joined:
June 2013
Posts: 4
| As you can tell, I'm to this site and the world of Ovation Guitars. What's piqued my interest about Ovation is a recent find of mine. Rummaging through my dad's stuff led me to an acoustic like something I hadn't seen before. That back was rounded and made of some material other than wood. After I did a little research, I ended up here.
It's been through some tough times though. When I inspected it closely I saw that a deep crack running from under the bridge to the sound hole, the input jack is loose in the cavity, and there are few nicks. I really like how this thing looks, and I wanted to attempt to bring it back to life. Something has baffled me though. The headstock isn't the usual "fan" headstock seen on most Ovations. Rather it is very unassuming. I looks asmost as if the fan section of the headstock has been chopped off. I've looked though many different pages looking for answers, and I'm stumped. I was wondering if anyone had any info that could assist me?
Here' a quick picture that I took of it. 
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Joined:
April 2008
Posts: 2985
Location: Sydney, Australia | Hi, your picture is not showing up - maybe a moderator needs to grant you full access to do that. Can you see a model number? It's usually on a label inside the bowl. |
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Joined:
June 2013
Posts: 4
| Hmm, that's odd. Anyway, the serial on the inside of the bowl reads 307301. I checked Ovation's 6 digit serials and it says this serial lines up with a guitar produced from 1985-1986. Looking at other guitars with similar serials I thought it was a Balladeer, but I have no idea.
Here's a link to the picture I posted. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7232
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | It looks like the link is to your google account and not a public location which is why we can't see it.  If you have a public link or a "share" link you can post it and it should work. |
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Joined:
June 2013
Posts: 4
| Sorry about that! I thought I had it on public viewing, but I guess not. Let's try this.
http://s23.postimg.org/mob9vs1nv/IMG_0707.jpg |
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Joined:
April 2008
Posts: 2985
Location: Sydney, Australia | That's had an amputation or its been scalped if you prefer that description. The gold machine heads suggest its a Legend. They didn't usually bolt the bridge on with Legends (two white dots on the bridge), but that might have been a repair too. It's had a hard life. Did your dad run with a wild crowd? |
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Joined:
August 2005
Posts: 3736
Location: Sunshine State, Australia | Fix the crack, string her up and give it a thrashing.
I'll bet it sounds AWESOME! |
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Joined:
June 2013
Posts: 4
| Thanks so much for the info, guys! I'm really interested in the history of this one. I was able to ask my father where he got it and he said got it in exchange for an old station wagon that was on its last leg. He got it from his "friend", and most of his friends are characters to say the least, The only thing wrong with it when he bought it was the removal of the top of the headstock. I don't get it. Why would someone just take it off? It wasn't a straight chop off either; the top headstock is angled inwards.
About the crack, do you think taking it to a luthier is the best route? I've read about some people using CA to fix the cracks, but this thing goes deep and severely affects playability. The crack rungs under the bride, which lowers the bass side to the point where, when strung, the E and A strings buzz along much of the fretboard. I know there's a guitar repair shop very close to here that is a licensed Ovation repair shop. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7232
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Hi and Welcome,
You can now post in other forums and I also updated the link in your first post. Essentially you have two routes..
1. You can fix the crack with some instruction from the folks here and maybe find a replacement neck at some point.
2. Send it back to the mothership for the crack fix and new neck.
While a local repair shop "may" be able to help, unless they really are well versed in Ovation and can show you examples of their work ON Ovations, you're better off sending it to the Factory. Everything from the build process to the finishing process and the materials and chemicals used on an Ovation are fairly unique. This does not generally equate to costly. I have seen some amazing work from the Factory as you'd expect, for the same price any local shop would do it without the risk of someone messing it up.
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Hello to all!
