Official Luthiers Forum!

So, going through the past threads I read somewhere that using the spanish method for joining the neck to the body was a bad idea on an acoustic because of the neck resets troubles it would get later in life. Is this why all of you guys building acoustics are using the tenon/mortise method? I thought maybe it was because it was easier to work on the body (i.e, bindings) without the neck in the way? My first build (a jumbo acoustic, sitka top, mahogany Neck + B&S) was started in a course, almost 3 years ago and was never finished for several reasons, but the point is, I built it using the spanish method after our teacher (a classical builder) showed it to us and wanted us to use it for our guitar. Which I thought was OK at the time, because after all I like the idea of the guitar being a whole, you know... not being "assembled", so to speak. Not that I thought there was anything wrong with that, I just liked the idea (and still do... hehe). As I said, it's not finished (quite far off, actually ) and already I was starting to feel like leaving it as it is, until maybe in a couple of years when I would feel up to finishing it, since I've lost most of the drive I had for this one (and can see waaaaay to many things I've done wrong and not payed enough attention to) and now I have other builds in mind (two electrics), but now with this possible neck reset thing... I think I've definitely lost all will to finish it. Which is somewhat a shame since I like how it looks overall so far...

So what do you think? Should I abandon definitely the project, or at least, take off the neck and make a tenon/mortise? What would a neck reset implies? Is the spanish method that much of a bad idea for acoustics?? Should I just blackmail this teacher for the next couple of years?

Thanks!

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Olivier Gauthier
Montreal, QC

Think that's what I'll do...

thanks guys!

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Olivier Gauthier
Montreal, QC