Official Luthiers Forum!

For those of you who glue on a dovetail neck after the neck and body are finished, can you provide your technique for protecting the body when clamping the neck to the body? I have always been afraid to assemble this way in the fear that I damage the finish from the clamping pressure. I have always finished my guitars with the neck glued on the body prior to finish.

Troy, call me crazy and unorthodox, but I do dovetail, M/T and bolt on and with all three types I use coarse thread 1/8" diameter screws form the inside through the neck block to lock and hold the neck during gluing, no clamping needed. On some of my sound-hole-less guitars I have no access to the neck block, but for a typical guitar with a sound hole of at least 3" dia. I simply run 2 scews in to the neck to hold it in place during glue up.
HTH-

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Nehemiah Covey
www.coveysacoustics.com

Dovetails , because of the geometry need to be clamped. Using a screw with the dovetail will actually work against the dovetail and pull the joining faces apart from each other. Clamping also should not be overly aggressive. I use a larg C clamp with a UHMW nylon cawl for on the body and I have a block to match the fret board radius . I use the C clamp over the 2 cawls , and have the clamp align to the first fret over the body and the bottom on the neck block. This pulls the joint tight. Then I use a 2nd clamp over the longer fretboard cawl and under the extension so I have the fretboard well clamped to the top.
That is all you need. Again don't tighten so hard that you glue starve the joint.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
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