Official Luthiers Forum!

hi guys i was looking everywhere for a page about taking the neck off
those 3 dowel -no neck joint cheapies
I know ye wouldent touch them with a barge pole
but i bet nearly everyone done it at some every point
and vowed to never to bother again .

Id be willing to do it regardless of the fact of the instrument
not being the worth the time
ive done it once before not easy espsially when i thought
it was a dovetail
made the dovetail jig and proceeded ( doh! )
If no links can i obtain there is a few querys ....
How can you tell dovetail from dowel apart from ply top ?
Will it just warp again in no time at all ?
Is their homemade heel heaters you can make ?
Whats the procedure with the dowel holes being off when neck angle
is reset
thanks guys again.. tomas

FRETS.com, FRETS.com, FRETS.com...

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier ... eset1.html

I have done something similar with doweled on necks, exept with a thin kerf japanese style saw, because i dont have an amazingly cool bone saw... yet.

I cut the neck off as carefully as i can, and convert it to a bolt on system.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

I remember seeing that bone saw article years ago and thought it was a great idea. I too have used use a Japanese saw which works out well. You may need to face the heal joint with a very thin shim to keep the intonation proper. Though the intonation a guitar like that could already be horrible

About intonation, yes it might be screwed up like jfmckenna said, but also like he said it is likely not good to begin with on a junker.

I like to re-rout the saddle slot to improve intonation, rather than shim the heel back.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

hello its tomas again thank you i was looking for hours with no results
that bolt on thing its fantastic
altough i dont agree with cutting into the heel
their must be a better solution i reallly think that some sort
of heat blanket mabye lump of steel shaped to take the heel

is it that youd reck the wood to get the dowels heated enough ?
or even drill into the heel and add steam? ..... well with cheapies i dont mind
a wee hole in it.
thanks again tomas

Sawing the neck off will probably be far less destructive than steaming/drilling/whatever else, unless somebody out there has a nifty trick i dont know yet.

The problem is that there is no where for the steam to go, so it is unlikely that it will penetrate deeply enough to soften the glue around the dowels.

This is not like a dovetail neck removal, where you have a gap between the dovetail and the body, which makes steam injection possible.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Yeah I agree, steam works with an entry and an exit hole best right into the gap at the dovetail joint and head block. It might work but you risk destroying the finish, delaminating the head block, top and back. If you somehow knew where the dowels were you could probably stem them out from the inside through the head block. Japanese saws are very thin and sharp. If you line the guitar sides with some flashing you can just cut right along those lines.

Fein Multimaster, jewelers slitting blades! I've found that the real thin ones, .006-.010, wander around too much. I also use a .008 Japanese pullsaw.

I just did a Blueridge 5-dowel a couple of weeks ago, thusly: tuned the guitar up way high, used a heat gun on the joint while worrying it back and forth, up and down. It started to loosen up in less than 10 minutes, then I unstrung, clamped it facedown, stressed so that the joint was open, and used the pullsaw to saw through the dowels. Of course, I'd loosened the FB extension first. Recut the heel--I'm now using a Steve Crisp type routing jig--and put it back together with 1/4-20 hangerbolts. A LOT less sandpaper flossing, with the router jig.

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https://soundcloud.com/jeffreylsuits/he ... -runnin-13