Official Luthiers Forum!

I always have a question if I can do a neck set on other acoustics besides what I call the big three, Martin, Gibson, and Guild. I have also done Ovation...but.. Can you remove and reset a neck on say a Yamaha, Takamine, Ibanez, or a Fender? Best case I guess is call the company and ask " how do you put your necks on? What do you think?

In most cases, the ones you mentioned have dovetail joints that can be reset in a similar fashion. However, the type of glue can be a problem. Some of them have been assembled with a glue that does not soften much with heat or steam.

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John

You can reset a neck on just about anything... but the problem is several fold:

1) Is it worth it or is the instrument "disposable" in the sense that it was not manufactured to be serviced as in the case of a dowelled neck joint and/or AMG (Asian mystery glue that won't release reliably with heat) etc.

2) Is it appropriate for the instrument. For example the cost of a professionally done neck reset with touch-up may exceed the price of a new instrument for some of the more inexpensive guitars.

Remember the standard of work for a neck reset is an invisible repair that cannot be spotted without perhaps the assistance of UV light. It's not difficult to reset a neck, it requires far more skill to do it perfectly while preserving the cosmetics of the instrument.

3) Are any risky unnatural acts required such as in the case of Japanese Martin copies where again AMG and a dowelled neck joint may have been employed we may see shops doing a "California neck reset" (that's what we call it here in Michigan when I strongly suspect that some in California will call it a Michigan neck reset since no one wants to take the credit for the method - or the blame....

Even a dowelled neck can be chopped off and reset with the addition of say a bolt-on system with a butt joint. But again what's the point, is it worth it, is it appropriate for the instrument, is it a productive use of time, and because of the disposable, non-serviceable nature of how any instrument may have been..... assembled does it make sense to even do.

I understand there is potential value in using a guitar as a mule to gain repair chops but be sure to find one with a neck joint that will be of value to learn to take apart. A dowelled joint neck although certainly a project to do has very little learning value for someone who wants to be capable of resetting a Martin or any dovetail joint.

You must be around my age Richard because I would have at one time called Guild one of the big three too. These days they are a blast from the past and sadly destined to be only a brand that has been bought and sold to those less interested in continuing any tradition and more interested in exploiting the value of the brand. Personal opinion that but not without countless examples of having it happen before.

One point to bring out is this
Agreed that some guitars will be less than the value of the work but a few times I have been addressed with the sentimental value of the customer.
With that in mind I have done early in my career was to buy flea market guitars and repair them. Yes I seldom made money but learned a great deal.
When you do find that one guitar that won't release here is a technique I used a few times with success , I cut the fretboard above the joint usually about 4 frets or if the guitar was getting refined I removed the fretboard . This allows total exposure of the joint.
Of all the joints epoxy is the worse to content with. If the joint won't release you can cut it free and turn it into a bolt on., as was stated about.
Learn by doing. Even failure can teach

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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

Let's hear it for the Westerly Guilds!

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It will probably be alright.

Agreed Greg although I just sold my trusty 1977 D-25 not wishing the neck reset with little, bitty heel and finish sprayed over the neck joint on myself....

Westerly 12's are IMHO about the best 12's very built!

We did about 5 Martin resets in the last 3 weeks ,not a Michigan set in the bunch .

Good to hear - Michigan is kind of sort of sucking these days anyway....

Maybe the California folks and the Michigan folks should consider letting some other state (or country...) have the infamy associated with bending an acoustic guitar back into proper geometry and then gluing and buttressing it all in place.... We can even offer to donate our come-alongs... to the new namesake for this form of......repair....

Oh come on I was just starting to have fun with it

Thanks for all the input. California/Michigan neck set ?? lol.. I must have missed a day at school...Am guessing you flip the guitar over and prop up the headstock on a box and then pile on the back with old text books, paint cans, and whatever you find around the house, and then check it every 30 days to see if the neck went straight...Am I close?

Richard that's basically it... Bend the instrument back into submission and then glue lots of little blocks or use buttressing to help keep it all in place.

Kind of like a face lift for a guitar only unlike people guitars don't have a full head of hair to hide where all the slack was bunched up and tied in place with a garbage bag tie....

I agree. I have a late 90's Westerly JF65 12 that sounds wonderful. I learned to play guitar in the early 1970's when John Denver was at the peak of is career. He played jumbo Guild 6 and 12 strings, and those instruments were a big part of shaping my opinion about what a guitar should sound like.

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It will probably be alright.

'California' neck set:
Remove the back binding in the upper bout.
Take the upper part of the back loose.
Pull the neck back, shifting the neck block.
Reglue the back, and trim off the excess.
Reinstall the binding.

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John

Pretty strong statement there Hesh, considering...

Is that also called a slipped heel neck reset?

More a slipped neck block than heel, because the neck joint isn't disturbed.

It's a process that, to my knowledge, started in Chicago, not California.

Locally, Jon Lundberg (who started in Chicago) developed a big reputation for vintage instruments and repairs in the early '60s, and was a practitioner of that process. So, I suppose that's the California connection. There are other, now abandoned, early reset techniques, including loosening the fingerboard over the body, cracking the neck backward and regluing, or doing a diagonal cut up through the heel to bend the neck backward.

The weirdest "reset" I ever heard of was done by a violin maker who removed the top of the guitar, planed the sides down, reducing the height of the end block in order to lower the bridge area. I can't imagine a more intrusive method of dealing with neck angle.

In the 1970s, it was rather common for some repairers to "backplane" the fingerboard, thinning it at the nut to avoid the need for resetting. Any number of Martin guitars got that treatment under warranty in those days.

We try not to judge the past. . .

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

Should have read "ever" built not "very" built.... Anyway they sound great with the greatest song ever written - Smoke on the Water....

Great let's blame Chicago then!!!

Frank I am sure that you have seen your share or resets where someone sawed through the fret board too..... Part of being a repair Luthier is learning to be a diplomat as well and trying not to judge the past is very much part of the diplomacy.

Makes me wonder what folks will say about our methods say 50 years from now.