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Location: Corpus Christi, TX | During a conversation with John Budny he indicated the falloff past the 14th fret is intentional. Don't know if yours is more or less than original but it is in my opinion nothing to be concerned about.
Now if I am mis remembering my conversation with John then delete this thought from your memory bank. |
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Location: Katmandu | Glen C. - 2016-02-14 12:13 PM
During a conversation with John Budny he indicated the falloff past the 14th fret is intentional. Don't know if yours is more or less than original but it is in my opinion nothing to be concerned about.
Now if I am mis remembering my conversation with John then delete this thought from your memory bank.
I imagine it would break a luthier's heart to have the fall-off of the fretboard as a feature rather than a deficiency which it objectively is, as playability is quite gravely affected past the 14th fret. Or I'm being inconsiderate of something here...
Since Damon67 mentioned the 1717 models have A-bracing, I've attached the right schematics for later reference below.
Edited by leonardmccoy 2016-02-14 3:51 PM
 (Ovation A.jpg)
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | A "fall-off" is better than a "hump".
I have read that many other brands of guitars also have a "fall-off" after the connection point.
 just sayin' 
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Location: Katmandu | I think I mistook "fall-off" for "hump" in Glen's post. And perhaps mine is indeed a rather extreme case of this phenomenon which befalls other brands as well and even more so (esp. Martin).
I got a question: Some of the cables hang rather loosely inside the L717 Legend and, when moving the body of the guitar, "scratch" rather noisily against the inner corpus. Are they supposed to be held in place somewhere inside the guitar? Or should I do it myself with a cable tie or so?
Edited by leonardmccoy 2016-02-15 10:48 AM
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Location: Muenster/Germany | If you still have the hump beneath the 14th fret (which of course affects the sound and playability of the guitar!!): the Ovations of that period have a bolt-on neck. Thus is is quite easy to perform a neck reset. I did this with many of my Ovations, meanwhile I feel like I can do it with my eyes closed. Removed the neck, made little(!) corrections at the neck heel to improve the neck angle itself and after that removed any redundant material under the neck so long until the hump was gone when I fixed the neck with the screws again. When all looks good, you may re-glue the fretboard on the top when you make the final fix of the neck screws.On one guitar (custom legend 12string)I had even to remove small parts of the top wood to achieve this.
If you change the neck angle a wee bit there will be another improvement: you will have to add one more shim under the pickup and you will get a better string angle and more pressure on it and that means more dynamics. A lot of work, you have to be careful and precise, but in the end you will have a guitar with a complete straight neck, playable with incredible low action without any buzz, just like Ovations have to be like. If you don´t want to do this youself, any luthier will be able to perform this easily.
So... , sorry, folks, but a guitar with a hump in the neck is NOT acceptably playable. |
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Location: Muenster/Germany | I forgot: a light fall-off of the neck is no problem, it makes the higher notes less easy to play but lets the strings move better and is, if not too much, desirable. What I mean is the hump, that so often is to find on older guitars, when the string action behind the 12th fret is getting lower and behind the 16th fret or so higher again, causing bad string buzz.
Oh man, all this is so hard to describe if you cannot use your own language.
And I forgot to mention that this is a wonderful guitar! A-braced are best. |
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Location: Katmandu | Thanks a lot for the information on the neck reset. I didn't know the procedure was that unproblematic. My luthier asked me about how the neck was attached to the body since he wasn't familiar with the intricacies of how Ovations are built either. |
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Location: Canada | DetlefMichel - 2016-02-15 12:13 PM I did this with many of my Ovations, meanwhile I feel like I can do it with my eyes closed. Hi Detlef, have you ever done this on one of the more recent LX neck models? |
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Location: Katmandu | I have the sneaking suspicion the previous owner of the L717 messed with the adjustable saddle. It seems he displaced the parts of the saddle that can be moved around freely to adjust the height of a string individually. For example, oddly enough, the E bass string seems higher than the other ones.
Perhaps someone can shed some light on how the parts ought to be placed in the correct order. As far as I understand it the lower saddle parts come under the 1st and 6th string respectively. But I don't know for sure and also whether the saddle parts are rotated correctly to begin with. See photo montage.
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Location: Jet City | The saddle/pickup assembly is all one piece. The saddles are not adjustable individually. You should not be able to move the saddles around at all. If you can, there's problems.
Technically, the lower E is indeed higher, as it is designed to be. The string vibrates more than the lower strings. It's compensated so it doesn't fret out. However, your saddle looks odd. If those saddle pieces are coming apart, they may be put back in the wrong spot.
Is the pickup even working? Have you plugged in yet? |
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Location: Katmandu | I just double-checked, the pickup is fully functional.
Comparing the saddle of my L717 with 360Ovation's (see photo below), mine does seem to have been messed with.
Unlike mine, the saddle of 360Ovation's L717 has the compensated saddle pieces reserved for the 1st and 6th string as I'm used to seeing it with other O's as well. However, my saddle compensates the high E and B strings, the latter of which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The low E string (bass) should be compensated instead.
Should I try and rearrange the pieces?
Edited by leonardmccoy 2016-02-20 7:05 PM
 (l717saddle-360ovation.jpg)
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Location: Katmandu | It was noticable that the E bass string (uncompensated) was the tiniest little bit too high in relation to the other bass strings, whereas the B treble string (compensated) ended up being the tiniest little bit too low in terms of string height and relatively speaking for the treble strings.
After seeing some photos of Old Man Arthur disassembling a classic Ovation saddle, I managed to gather enough courage to go ahead and trying to put the compensated saddle joints in their rightful position on the L717 saddle.
It was a fairly simple procedure: After winding down the strings I just had to lift the black saddle pins, and the saddle joints were free to be moved about or swapped out entirely. I reverted the compensated pieces back to their default position on the saddle. Now the low E strings is compensated again, together with the high E string. This in turn allowed me to straighten the neck the tiniest little bit (by ways of adjusting the truss rod) as the B string, which was previously too low due to being compensated -- wrongly so -- on the saddle, would no longer buzz with a yet straighter neck with the least amount of clearance. 
Edited by leonardmccoy 2016-02-21 10:57 AM
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Location: Jet City | yeah, not supposed to work that way, but glad it's going right now.
aside from the endpins, it's designed to be one unit. They obviously messed with it if the saddles were individually moveable. The saddle piece if you do remove it is all one piece from the factory. See the pic (stolen from Arthur)
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Location: Katmandu | Then, much to my dismay, the previous owner or his luthier must have cut the saddle into individual joints to swap out the bits in a nonsensical fashion. It seemed strange to me from the beginning that you could glide the pieces up and down the saddle, hence the gap between certain segments.
He told me that he had string action addressed; however, once the truss rod got re-adjusted by me string action was a nonissue as she played like a dream, barring the above saddle mess-up, of course, and the fretboard hump. In general he didn't treat the guitar gracefully at all even though it's such a well-made, well-sounding instrument.
I wonder if I should try and get a new lefty L717 saddle or leave it as is.
Edited by leonardmccoy 2016-02-22 9:33 AM
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Location: Jet City | You might try Customer Service, but it could very well be that you have to purchase the entire pickup assembly. |
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Location: Cologne/Germany | <p>The white saddle piece is available in Germany via the new European Ovation distributor GEWA. Got two of them recently for about $ 8 each. They both weren't straight though.... tried to work a bit on one, and it broke easily. Well, it's plastic..... Anyway, since they got the stuff from the US, should be available from the mother.</p>
Edited by red-twins 2016-02-22 1:39 PM
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Location: Katmandu | Thanks, Damon and red-twins, that's a good call.
I'll try and contact GEWA here in Germany for an extra saddle. Even though the current one with its separated joints sits firmly in the shaft, it certainly won't hurt to replace it in its entirety. |
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Location: Katmandu | Bit by bit I'm discovering the unknown parts of that guitar's history. It would seem the previous owner had flattened the curvature of the saddle a tad perhaps by sanding it down the tiniest little amount at the highest point of the saddle. When I got the replacement saddles, which are way more pointy in comparison, that became pretty apparent.
The only unfortunate thing is that the retailer delivered the wrong saddle pieces, namely for righthanded Ovations. Due to how the strings are compensated, I can't use those on a lefty though. The current saddle plays well and the intonation is perfect. Still, I'll see whether I can't get hold of a lefty replacement saddle or two.
I was surprised to see a replacement volume knob delivered without any issues for the integrated OP-24, though, from 26 years ago.
Edited by leonardmccoy 2016-03-03 4:14 PM
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Location: Cologne/Germany | ...to me the saddle looks same on both ends, but you may be right... That was quickly delivered, eh?! I heard rumour last year in one guitar pawn shop that GEWA got spare stuff from F........ Don't know if that's correct, but if, F....... itself probably got older spares from the former distributor Musik Meyer. Anyway, fortunately it's still there....
Edited by red-twins 2016-03-03 5:26 PM
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Location: Katmandu | My local guitar shop just contacted me as they got word back from the European distributor (GEWA) who in turn contacted the Mothership regarding the lefty saddle. The distributor now ordered the correct saddle for a lefty directly from the mothership; delivery will take a while.
It would have been but a cosmetic upgrade for my L717. She plays incredibly well with the disjointed current (lefty) saddle and sounds too good to be true. I love me that A bracing. |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | You did order Two, didn't you?
Just thinking ahead. 
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Many from that age had the drop off. There's no money above the 5th fret anyway, let alone the 14th |
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Location: Katmandu | Old Man Arthur - 2016-03-04 3:45 AM You did order Two, didn't you? Just thinking ahead.
Yes, sir, I did.
Here's a comparison shot of a righty vs. lefty saddle:
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Location: Boise, Idaho | BTW, nice job on the Cat Stevens tabs. |
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Location: Cologne/Germany | leonardmccoy - 2016-03-04 2:55 PM
Here's a comparison shot of a righty vs. lefty saddle:
Leonhard, I finally got the difference! Interesting to me that the spare part is not straight... same with the two I ordered last year... Tried to work a bit on it and it broke easily. Well, it is stiff plastic....But I assume I could use the two halves. I have not tried so far, since the old saddle still works but I wonder whether they would fit to the pickup.... Without looking it up didn't you wrote that the former owner has put the saddle into six pieces. If correct, You could take a Right hand version and put them together the way you want it. Maybe that is what the preowner did... But if available a new one seems to be the best idea.
Edited by red-twins 2016-03-04 5:32 PM
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1990 L717 Cream-White
