Official Luthiers Forum!

Well, this is my first, and after spending about 25 hrs so far (I guestimate) I am just super frustrated with my neck joint. I'm am writing here more or less because I am so discouraged with this thing.

So, here is my story. It is my 1st guitar, I am using the Martin head block with pre-cut dovetail mortise. I hand cut the tenon. I had the fit almost perfect (I thought), leaving it pretty proud (~.100") so I could bring it down after I finished shaping the heel. I made the mistake of thinking this would be easy, and glued my fingerboard on. Now I have brought it down to the right height once, but fought rocking and loseness the whole way. When the neck was at the right depth it still had a rock or was loose in the the bottom of the tenon, so I shimmed it with .007" mahog plane shavings to bring it back up .020" above the top. Now, I'm bringing it down again but am still fighting a rock and loseness. It is either lose in the lower tenon, or rocks diagonally.

I have read EVERY thing I can find here on the OLF, read other toots online, read my Cumpiano book (worthless for dovetails) and still I feel lost when trying to know where to carve away in order to stop a rocking in the neck joint. I have my chisels as sharp as I can get them, and am using angled sanding blocks, but luck so far. This was one of the three parts I was dreading when I started out on this guitar, and those fears have materialized so far.

I like the description that another OLFer used in an archived article - It is like "flying an airplane blindfold" because you can't see anything your doing (especially when you already put the FB on. So, if any of you have advice, or encouragement for my little spirit, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks all.

justin

Mark the DT mortise with sidewalk chalk. You can see where the areas of contact are and remove small amounts. The finger borad being on complicates things slightly, but that's the way neck re sets are done on older guitars. Again, take your time, and check often with chalk to see where it's contacting and where it isn't.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

Woody - Thanks for the reply,

I have been using chalk and carbon paper. When I find the high spots I take them down a tiny bit, but it seems to just move the rock around to different axis and I haven't yet figured out how the rock is started, how to eliminate it, or how it moves around.

Thanks. My dad said to just fill it with a lot of glue. I know this isn't the answer, so I'll keep working. I hear that a local luthier is in my home town - Michael Bashkin, So I might try to go visit him for some help.

look me up at blues creek guitars and call me I can walk you through the process. It seems that you may have had something holding off your joint then once you got to the point that you were over corrected it went too far. Dovetails are not that hard but most people do over think them and make them difficult.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I've been in your same shoes. Very frustrating. After struggling with the joint for weeks and pulling out what was left of my hair I decided the fingerboard had to come off. It was actually quite simple to remove and with that blasted thing out of the way I found fitting the dovetail to be much easier.

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George :-)

What I used to do was have the fit loose .. easy when you are doing a neck reset because getting the angle right will loosen up the dovetil fit anyway ... so ... I get the bottom tight first - add shims on the bottom until it wont slip down, then take off shaving with a chisel until its just proud. Do the same to the top now .... shoudl be able to get it tight, then glue and clam it in ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Thanks everyone for the input on this! I talked with John Hall this morning - so I am off to try out his advice.

Tony - that method also sounds like a logical approach, thank you.