fjeanmur wrote:
Hi Wrench!
So do you think there's hope for that Mitchell (Guitar Center house brand, I think) dreadnought guitar I bought used, (but never played) for $50.00 when my daughter started asking "Mom, I don't get it . . .how do you do this?" The pain lasted well beyond the month of callous building, and when she gave up on playing, that's when I started using her Seagull. The action on the Mitchell is too high, but I didn't want to throw good money after bad to try to do something about it. So it's been in the closet for months now. I've thought it would be nice to have a spare guitar, now you've got me wondering. Opinions anyone?
Jean
I'll let you know in a week or so, Jean. I bought one of these today to experiment with. It has a good neck angle and a good neck joint. Everything else I can fix. The nut and saddle are made of crappy material, but they are actually fit petty well. The saddle slot is machined as well as any I have ever seen. The nut seat is pretty good, too. The intonation is decent. The frets are awful - really awful. So my playability plan is fret level and crown, and a setup. My sound plan is to analyze the sound, make a bone nut and saddle, then trim the natural frequencies of the top, back, and main air. I tune the top and back by altering the mass (by either adding mass or shaving the braces) to obtain the nearest natural frequencies that are prime numbers. I know this guitar has a decent neck angle because of the action height and saddle exposure. The neck joint is probably good because this thing has extraordinary harmonics right out of the box. If it doesn't work out, I should get at least 30 minutes of heat out of it this coming winter. It's either going to be a campfire guitar or campfire fuel!
I've seen a few of these things at GC that were OK, and some that were laughable. I picked this one up at a nearby independent store at a very low price. After reading your post, I couldn't resist. There was another one in the store that was very playable, so there might be hope for your dread. Since you only have $50 in it, be brave, and go get your toolbox!
To tell if the guitar has a good enough neck angle to even try fixing it, check these two things. First, measure the distance between the bottom of the low E string and the guitar top. If you don't have at least 1/2", don't bother with it, since the action is already too high. The other neck angle check is to lay a 24" straightedge down the center of the neck to the bridge. If the straightedge is below the surface of the bridge and you have less than 1/8" of saddle exposure, the guitar probably doesn't have enough neck angle to make it worth saving. If you do meet these criteria though, you should be able to make it playable.
If it gives you GAS, step outside for a while, come back and play some more. 
:silly: 