2002 Tacoma Chief CKK9C Koa Modded Hybrid Acoustic/Electric Classical Guitar

This guitar has a long and curious history. Suffice to say, it started-out as a steel-string, mini-jumob-size flattop guitar with the interesting Tacoma tonebar bracing style, an undersaddle pickup with a battery-powered onboard preamp, and clean, easy looks. I think Tacoma got a lot of things right with their design work on these.

One thing they did not get right, however, was the way they installed their truss rods. The neck on this guitar became non-adjustable at some point (it bottomed-out and its effectiveness before bottoming-out was questionable, anyhow). As such, the action got higher and it became a "truck guitar" for cowboy-chord strumming on the road. At one point the last owner dropped it down to 4 strings and used it as a hodge-podge tenor guitar for a while. Nothing helped get its playability back, though!

Along the way, the previous owner traded it into me in said, fussy state. I removed the fretboard from the neck (a horrible challenge as I'm pretty sure it was epoxied on there) so I could deal with the rod and then I lost steam and then let it collect dust. I have been tired of collecting trade-ins and so I finally, after perhaps a year or more, decided to get the job finished. I didn't expect a whole lot from the neck, though, as Tacoma cut its depth way too thin. It's like... "wizard" electric guitar neck thin...

The repair involved removing the old rod, expanding the rod slot slightly, and gluing-in some non-adjustable carbon fiber rods. I then reglued the fretboard and my guy Jose gave it a board plane and refret that is perfect. After that I initially tried it out with steel-string 11s (slightly too heavy in tension and they pulled the neck relief forward a hair) which sounded good but were not useful. I detuned them a half-step to get equivalent tension of "10s" or close to it and the neck snapped-back to straight again. As the neck wants lighter gauges and the saddle slot was cut almost straight in relation to the neck (rather than compensated normally), I decided to set it up as a "hybrid classical guitar" -- and the tonebar bracing, which is reminiscent of fan bracing, helps with the sound, here. Hybrid classical just means that the neck is fast and radiused like a steel-string guitar vs. a wide-nut, flat-board, thick-neck of a typical classical guitar -- though the 1 3/4" nut width helps maintain a good feel with the larger-diameter strings.

The last changes I made were to un-compensate the original saddle, remove the cruddy old preamp and undersaddle pickup, and fit a one-sensor K&K pickup with the jack wired to the original jack location. The 9V battery slot is still there near the endblock but it serves no purpose -- maybe one could store something in it? I recut the old preamp cutout-hole into a softer shape and thus converted it into a "soundport." It does help with the player's ear being able to listen to the guitar and enjoy it and it looks a heck of a lot better than having a disconnected, black-plastic, preamp sitting up on the shoulder.

Anyhow, it's a quirky instrument, has a midsy/woody sound that's suitable for folk-strumming and flamenco-style sounds, is the fastest-feeling "classical" I've ever played, and has the benefit of wearing a ton of lightly-figured solid koa wood throughout the body quite well, too! It's easy on the eyes.

Repairs included: replacement truss rod/neck repairs, board plane and refret with jumbo frets, minor seam repairs, various modifications, and setup. 

• Weight: 3 lbs 15 oz
• Scale length: 25 1/2"
• Nut width: 1 3/4"
• Neck shape: very slim oval C
• Board radius: 7 1/4"
• Body width: 15 1/4"
• Body depth: 3 1/2"
• Top wood: solid koa
• Back & sides wood: solid koa
• Bracing type: tonebar
• Bridge: rosewood
• Fretboard: rosewood
• Neck wood: mahogany
• Action height at 12th fret: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: medium-tension D'Addario nylon strings
• Truss rod: non-djustable
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: jumbo

Condition notes: please read the description for all of the modification notes. Aside from those, there's an old repaired tiny crack on the treble-side-lower-bout (pictured). There's pickwear/playwear to the treble side of the strings on the upper-bout, too, but it's good-looking wear. There's no adjustable truss rod anymore (just carbon-fiber reinforcement) and so the "truss cover" is just stuck-on to hide the old truss rod rout.

It comes with: sorry, no case.

Consignor tag: JW