D'oh - diddled on ebay

[Dacious]

Bought a low-end guitar for a friend, looked good described as 'excellent condition, plays really well'. I only spent $80US on it all up. It's a Canora with a solid top/laminate sides and one of those funky 70's chrome soundhole pickups.

Everything on it looks fine, and it is glossy and shiny as advertised, but the front of the body/soundhole region is bowed down by the neck (sun damage maybe). It's only 1/4" at the front of the soundhole, but it lifts the neck and renders the action at the neck/body join about 1/4".

The seller says "we're not experts and we can't see anything wrong and you should have asked and why are you looking for mint guitars cheap on ebay and anyone else would think it's a bargain etc etc." Sheesh.

If I remove the strings, and use a couple wedges between the fairly substantial top-bottom braces, and steam under the front edge, any chance I can lift back up a little?

Or should I just put it down to experience and use it for a slide guitar?

[Ash]

That is a common problem on cheap acoustics.

The neck sank. Basically, string tension has pulled up on the neck down by the headstock, causing the neck to sink into the top down by the soundhole.

The fix for this is a neck reset, which will cost far more than the guitar, and certainly far more than it's worth.

I was once given an acoustic in the same condition. I was able to use it for slide a bit, but ended up just throwing the thing out.

It sucks what happened and yet, for $80, what did you expect?