bit of a fixer upper

stickers cleaned off and it's starting to look something like. a few unpleasant surprises, some expected others not so. So, definitely laminate back and sides, evidenced by the binding channel. Half the back binding is missing, and I'll have to replace with something. Shoudl be fairly straightforward.

The bad news was at the heel when I removed stickers there there was a bloody great hole where you'd expect a strap button, and a big woodscrew into the neckblock. There's a bit of daylight between the heel and body and someone has obviously tried to hold this down by primitive means. I got as far as sticking a set of better tuners on last night, and putting a string on to check geometry. It's all a bit high of action, and is going to need much more work. I have a few options - sensible but least fun, try and take the neck off and reset, I could use the current excavation in the heel to install a bolt at the same time to try and pull it all back. The other lazy but possible option - use the perfect slide nut I have and accept that this fifty year old box might be great for slide only.