1966 Kay guitar intonation

WilliamSandoval · #1 08-19-2011, 09:48 PM

My Dad's old Kay has been sitting in the garage for who knows how long. Apparently, it was stolen from one of my dad's friends, and who ever stole it gave it to my dad. I'm 99% sure it used to be black and has been painted with white house paint and set on fire. It's got some serious Mojo!

My dad never played the thing, and never really did anything with it, so I tried fixing it up. It was missing a tuning post, so I put in one from my old BC Rich. Not a perfect fit, but it works! Anyway, the intonation is way off. There is no way to adjust it either. The bridge is just a block of wood with a tremolo. I have noticed that the nut is extremely high on the E B and G strings I tried to fix it, but the nut is glued on there so well that it just broke when I tried to take it off. I fixed it though! My question is, how do I fix the intonation problem? Would the nut have anything to do with it?

The intonation is so far off, you can hear it. It isn't just a little sharp...

AltGrendel · #2 08-20-2011, 07:19 AM

I think you'll wind up having to carve something by hand. You can get ebony pen blanks for that if you're really determined to DIY. You'll probably have to use the same method as intonation on an acoustic guitar.

If you don't do wood working, I'd just take it to a luthier and have them check it out.

Dirk Diggler · #3 08-20-2011, 09:43 PM

It's the curse of the stolen instrument, no repairs will fix that bad mojo.

Good luck,
Dirk

WilliamSandoval · #4 08-20-2011, 10:03 PM

I fixed the nut. It's still pretty high, but at least it's level now. The intonation is good now, or at least you can't hear how bad it is. All in all, I don't anticipate any repairs in the near future. Thanks for the help, but it was just a bad nut!