Official Luthiers Forum!

The newest Luthier Tips du Jour instructional video is on Youtube. The topic is the neck reset. Subtitles are available in both English and Portuguese and you can translate them into any other language by using the CC option on Youtube.
As always, comments and discussion are welcome.
Enjoy!

Not sure why the frets were removed...??
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I wanted to level the fretboard. Can't do that with frets installed.

Filippo:Guess I missed that video....not too bright here you know. The amount to be removed from the bottom of the heel can be figured mathimaticaly for anyone interested.With the strings set so that the correct over the top height is OK,check the action at the 12th fret,subtract the desired height from this and double. This is the amount of set back required at the nut to get your correct action height.Measure the distance from the nut to the body joint,then divide this by the heel height,this gives you a constant that divided into the neck set back gives the amount to be removed at the end of heel. If the action measurements are taken accurately IE by feeler gauges this works out quite nicely.
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Great job Robbie as usual. I like the narrative voice over. We have all learned from you videos, how about a Dovetail neck reset in a future video

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Thanks everyone. Glad you are enjoying the videos.
Happy Building!

Never seen a neck reset being done before. You make it seem, erm, learnable

Beautiful guitar as well.

Looks like you really pared out a lot of wood there. Interesting.

_________________
"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

I've never done a neck re-set so this question comes out of ignorance. Frank Ford over on www.frets.com does neck re-sets on guitars with bolt-on necks without acutally totally removing the neck from the guitar. He just takes out the bolts and is able to separate the heel from the body enough (with the fretboard extension still glued to the top) to get sand paper in to do some flossing. Seems to make things quite simple. I'm just wondering if this is a technique that could always be used for bolt-on necks or are there times when it is necessary to completely remove the neck as Robbie did in this video.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I've done it that way on a couple of bolt-ons. It works very well if there is very little material to remove to regain proper geometry. Otherwise you end up with a hump at the neck joint, which is both unsightly and makes the action high over the body (if you play there).

_________________
Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Well, Robbie, I have to admit that even though your video contains lots of useful information, for the first time I was a bit disappointed. Not so much about what's in the video as much as what is not. A little like what Filippo mentioned, but for different reasons.

My mouth was watering at the expectation of seeing you remove a neck with steam, which you did not do.

I, for myself, believe that to be the most critical and difficult part of a neck reset. Figuring out the neck joint, drilling the hole at the 15th fret in order to find the empty spot, shooting the steam and working the neck to remove it. I actually find this so stressful and painful that I've decided to not do it anymore, and I systematically refuse these repairs.

But hey, that's just me and I'm just saying that since you invited us to comment and criticise. I still appreciate your videos and all the effort you put in them.

_________________
Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

Thanks for the comments everyone. My intent with these videos is to not necessarily give you everything you need in the way of skills and information to hang out a shingle and call yourself a master luthier or repairman. However, even though I am very generous with what I show in these videos I can't show it all. Time will not permit. The video format I use for the Luthier Tips du Jour works well to get your curiosity up and those that want to take it to the next level now have a basis to build upon. They were never intended to be a "tell all". I think in today's world of instant gratification not many people are willing to pay the price and do what it takes to reap the rewards. Most folks wants to be something without paying their dues and busting their butt to do what it takes to get there.
In the video I explain that I decided to do a neck reset on this guitar because there wasn't enough saddle sticking out of the bridge to adjust the action at the 12th fret. I also explain what not to do to get that action, i.e. plane the bridge, adjust the truss rod... "A violation of league rules"
I also do not steam the neck apart because there is no glue in the M&T neck joint.
Yes, you can remove the bolts and floss the shoulders of a butt joint to change the neck angle somewhat without removing the fretboard. However, this was a video on how to reset the neck angle on a bolt on M&T neck joint and not a butt joint neck joint. You couldn't floss it the way you described because of the tenon in the way.
I also always include a fretboard dressing and refret in all of my neck resets. For my method it works better that way.
In my video about setting up an acoustic guitar I explain how I set up my acoustics and the order in which I do it. I also explain about saddle height to get the correct action at the 12th fret. This guitar didn't meet those requirements so I did an adjustment to the neck angle.
Hope this clears up some of the doubts and answers some questions.
Happy Building!

Laurent,

I take from what you said that if you have more material to remove from the heel, you take the neck off entirely. And then what do you do to avoid getting a hump at the join and high action over the fretboard extension area? I'm not seeing how removing the neck helps you out with this problem if there is a large correction to make.

Thanks,
Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

It is impossible to pare with a chisel with the neck on, and too tedious to do with fine sandpaper if a lot of material has to be removed. Without mentioning the difficulty of keeping the parallelism.
If the reset is drastic enough I prefer to level the fretboard and refret, others may have different opinions.
IMHO the trick to keep the fretboard glued, loosen the bolts and slip sandpaper on the cheeks and heel is good for a small adjustment.

_________________
Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

A technique I learned from a good repair person is to use your neck tenon routing jig for neck resets that require a fair amount of wood removal. With a couple of attachments--a carriage to hold the neck and an insert for the router that allows the fretboard to stick up you can use a Dremel with a 1/8" router bit to remove wood quite accurately, then fine tune the final fit with flossing.

_________________
It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Hey, Robbie,
I really appreciate your series of video tutorials. They're very informative for hobby builders like me, and I usually get new ideas about how to approach various tasks from watching these. In addition, they often stimulate lots of good discussion, as in this case, with more experienced builders chiming in, explaining things, or offering alternatives. Thanks for posting, and please keep them coming when time permits.

Cheers,
Patrick

Thank you Patrick. Glad you are enjoying them.