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I haven't really seen very much discussion on this topic... Is it inevitable that a flat-top steel-string guitar will need a neck reset?

I have noticed a few designs (extra struts from neck block to waist, etc...) but you see far more innovation in making the neck easily removable and/or adjustable. Some designs provide great adjustability but seem like they compromise the stability of the box.

So is there more effort being put into fixing the symptom (high action, neck angle too low) than the actual problem (distortion of the soundbox)?

What's your understanding of specifically how a traditional flat top body distorts over time, whether it's an intuitive guess or actual observation? Where does the traditional Martin design fail in that respect, if you even call that a design failure? Is this just the nature of a wooden structure under stress?

Lowden guitars are not designed for an easy neck reset. That's intentional on George's part as his design actually has top bracing that goes into the dovetail joint, which he thinks will stabilize the soundbox. I noticed in Ervin Somogyi's book ("The Making of...") that his neck joint would be hard to take apart, too. I haven't read far enough into either book, but my guess is he feels he's made the soundbox stable enough not to require adjustment later on.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

98% yes

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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

Stings pull the peghead and bridge toward each other the stresses of this constant pull are transferred into the body focusing mainly at the bridge and neck block. The first thing that wants to change due to this constant force is the bridge wants to rotate towards the Sound hole with the saddle the axis of this rotation. The back of the bridge wants to go upward and the front wants to go inward. The neck wants to do the sane thing. The peg head want to move upward and the fretboard extension wants to move inward. All this stress is buttressed (e.g. supported and restrained) by the structure and bracing of the guitar. But the material we build with is not a totally static and ridged material. Wood want to conform to the constant stress it sees. Due to the nature of wood to conforming to stress loads at some point the stress reshapes the wood. In the guitars case the neck block is massive and thick but the rim is thin and pliable so the neck loads cause the neck block pull the upper rim inward and the lower rim outward causing the geometry to be altered. The tops bracing is relatively light and flexible the constant pull and rotation of the loaded bridge causes the top to bulge behind the bridge and sink in front of the bridge. At some point in time these two factors miss shape the geometry of the body to a point where the fretboard plane to top of bridge relationship is no longer within a workable relationship.

Now it might take 10 years it might take 50 years, 100 years or more but at some point the constant force of the stings will alter the shape of the guitars geometry. So the answer to you topic question is yes at some point all Steel string acoustic guitars built from wood in typical construction design will need to have a neck reset to keep the fretboard plane in good relationship to the top of the bridge.

I asked this question to a very qualified guy who has taught Lutherie and repair and his answer was yes too.

But... this does not mean that we need to get in the mindset that resets are to be expected often. But the answer that I received was that every 15-20 years or so is no big deal and of course when done properly it's a new lease on life until the next time the headstock tries to hit on the butt wedge.....

BTW I have a 33 year old Guild that is NOT in need of it's first neck reset yet.

Great post and question! What else should I expect from a fellow Arkansan! <smile>

I look forward to reading the responses.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

I agree with that for sure on a traditionally built guitar, but is it possible to overcome this issue with a non-traditional design in some way? Is this an insurmountable design problem - to make a responsive guitar that is stable enough to hold it's shape over a long period of time? (I'm not saying the answer isn't yes)

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Sure; build with a material that will not deflect and or conform its shape due to continuous load stress. Outside of that there are countless of ways to postpone the effect of the string loading. For each of them there is a trade off of some sort or value.

Yep they are. Just sent a 57 000-28 back to original owner. He had it reset in the mid 70's mostly because son did something to it. This was second with a full fret job (1st time) Have done several over last few months and mostly 25 year old plus instruments.

I am absolutely confident that my steel string guitars will never need a reset, nor will they need a summer and winter saddle.
I use a Stauffer style neck joint with elevated fingerboard.
Neck angle can be adjusted in 10 seconds without detuning or using tools.
But if you want the guitar to look like a Martin....

Could you mean that your necks don't need to be dissasembled?- Changing the angle is a neck reset, IMO. Your instruments are adjusted mechanically- easier, but still a reset......

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

What I mean is that the action can be continually maintained to the player's preference, up or down rather than having this big event of a neck reset when the action becomes too bad.

"... when the action becomes too bad." --- This is what I mean, is there a different design to prevent this from happening?

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

My understanding is that even with carbon fiber rods and laminated necks, etc, the tension of the strings would still tend to cause the geometry of the guitar to change over time, including slippage/deformation of the neck block and heel block. Which if I understand correctly is the main reason neck resets are required. Yes you can build really strong/stiff necks, but that alone doesn't solve the problem.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

As everyone here has said, and I agree, the answer seems to be "yes, a neck reset is inevitable" if using traditional construction. Grossly "overbuilding" the body seems about the only way out of it, and fine, lightly-built, "responsive", handmade guitars swing the probability of an eventual neck reset close to 100%. It makes sense to me that a guitar that needs a neck reset will often eventually need yet another...

Adding an adjustable neck should mean the guitar never needs a traditional neck reset, just a slight tweak to the hardware changes the neck/body angle. Still, that may not be enough if the box is built extremely flimsy, as the box may distort beyond what the adjustable neck can compensate for.

The Howard Klepper, Dave White style of internal struts in the box, plus stiff sides and linings should drop the percentage of probability of an eventual neck reset considerably.

But, to try to make sure the body cannot deform in the first place, I think you need to ensure that the box, most specifically the neck block's relationship to the tail block, always remains in the same shape as the day it was built. There is probably a way to laminate and cross-laminate carbon fiber to create a contiguous lining around the box that could hold the box shape and look pretty traditional, and I will eventually experiment with that, but for now here's what I am doing...



(nevermind the shape of the butt of this guitar, that has nothing to do with this topic)

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

What Mike said about CF rods in the neck - does nothing to belay body distortion.

But... combine the CF rods in the neck with say what Dennis just posted, using CF rods to maintain the body geometry and you just may not ever need a neck reset...

Pretty cool Dennis!

With a Cumpiano-style bolt-on neck, one can do a reset in a few hours, and have it back to the customer the next day. Not a lot of work to do every 15-20 years, IMO.

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

One of the things that prompted me to post was seeing a picture from a Larson Bros patent on the Montuoro site: http://www.montuoroguitars.com/pricing.htm with a an adjustable rod going from tail block through the neck heel.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Newbie thought... Is a guitar purely a musical tool with a limited life or are folk building heirlooms that last forever...I guess the ideal is both, but given that the tone is so affected by the rigidity or otherwise, is there a dnager that in the course of looking for ultimate stability and maximising the life of an instrument, it compromises the very thing its designed for?

Don't the old Nationals have a big, fat neck stick that goes all the way to the tail block ?

Even they need an occasional reset

-jd

It did not prevent it form happening it just made the reset a mechanical adjustment with out disassembly. No mater what you do to the neck joint the pull of the string sill alters the bridge/top belly and neck block/rim geometry over time even if the fretboard is not in contact with the top. The neck block sees the loading off the strings.

Don’t take this wrong I think the adjustable neck design is innovative and a good solution for periodical adjustment.. but the geometry of the rim and top will still change over time.

Exactly! There are tons of things you can do to delay the effect of stress but short of eliminating the strings the loading, stress will slowly but surly take its toll. Even Carbon fiber rods will eventually yield to the stress. We probably wont be around but it will happen

Yes there is that is the reason we still search for the Holy Gail of structure vs responce centuries after the invention of the guitar.

Conventional construction and proper care on a 6 steel string light gauge I would say that with proper care 20 years is reasonable mean time. There is far too much that is dependent on the individual build to really define a good number.

I under stood this but the point I was making was that while there are many things we can do to delay the affect of load stress we should never consider that we have eliminated the affect of load stress. Buttressing and other reinforcement redirect the load to another bearing surface. That surface and or the buttress will at some point deflect under the constant force of the load stress. It is easy for us to think we have eliminated the stress but all we really do is redirect it or reinforce against it but we never eliminate it. To me that is an important thing to always keep in mind

ab-so-lute-ly