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  I have figured out most of what I need to know about neck resets with the exception of what kind of neck joint I am dealing with,    I have had an Epiphone  accoustic for 30 years or so,  the action was high enough to warrant a reset, I pulled the appropriate fret drilled and steamed away only to eventually discover the neck had no mortise,  ( lord knows where the steam was going ) the heel  was  flush with the outside of the box and had two dowels reinforcing the joint. ( as I later found out from the Japanese era of Epiphone

 I now have a repair for a young student,  a cordoba C5- CE classical with a severe neck bend. I think a reset would help here but you can't reset a spanish heel right?   only the grain on the neck block inside the box is vertical not end grain, thus not a spanish heel ( am I right ?) . what kind of neck joint do we have here?   is there a database somewhere that has this data,  is this  a case where there is no substiture for experience.

bear in mind it is obvious when the neck is bolted,  a taylor is clear, a martin is going to have a tapered dovetail etc etc.

 Hoping someone can shed some light on this

Peter

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The only way to know it is xrays, or a luthier who discovered it by himself before you. There is no knowledge base as far as I know. By the way you can try to contact the maker, maybe he will give you the answer?

Thanks;

   I'll try to locate the maker , so far have not been able to find a contact for them, but have been busy with other things

one thing I learned is some guitars probably are not worth the effort to do a job like this, but I have voluteered my time for a summer camp " school of rock thing and offered to do any repairs any of them needed, so just trying to get them playable guitars, most had no idea of intonation, action etc, many had steel strings on classicall guitars

 anyway thanks for your suggestion

Peter

The database somewhere that has this data would be Frank Ford's Frets.com. I'm not sure how a reset will cure a bent neck, but it's somehow all covered in a piece Frank has there. You don't need x-rays, you don't need to remove the neck.

Thanks

  I have worshiped at Franks site for some time now,  I am gratefull for the generosity show  within it I'll try to do the same in the future

 I did not give all the info , was kind of confused a bit  myself  ,before I took off the strings I thought it bent uniformly.   from body to nut  in any case the action was ridiculous  . after I took the strings off ( should have nailed it down a bit more) it seemed to have ok neck relief but a kink at the body,  as I mentioned in the above post, I think this is a $ 300 guitar,  most likely not worth the cost of repairs to get it set up right , but I promised the kid I would try and get it working for him, and I still have a lot to learn and this might be a good learning experience.  it would seem to have two problems  1) a bent neck and 2) a poor angle joining the body   I considered heating the neck with a 1" x 3" x 20 " aluminum bar I have , clamped to it, I have seen a heating iron for sale that would seem to work on this principal.  I considered removing the fretboard and adding some type of reinforcement. I considered routing a "skunk stripe and laying in some carbon fiber uni's I have around,  I have repaired the other small  damages and wil string it up again before make a plan.

Cheers

Peter

 

If the neck is 'bent', a reset will not do the trick. You MAY have to remove the fretboard, then plane the neck a little to take out the bend, re-glue on the fret board. OR, sometime using a wider (thicker) fret tang to straighten the neck out.

Thanks Chris;

   I'm going to restring it up and take another look

Peter

If you have the right equipment, the neck can be heated and set to remove the dip.  I have a cheaper 

Spanish flamenco that had this problem and my friendly local store did this for me (Folk Shop in Tucson--they see a lot of less expensive instruments as well as the good ones).  It took two shots but now it's nice and straight.  

 

Larry

This makes little sense, as Spanish and/or flamenco guitars don't have removable necks—the neck and neckblock are one piece.

 

The usual way of eliminating a hump at the body joint, no matter the neck joint type, is to simply remove the frets, plane the board true, and put in new frets. You only need to reset the neck if the basic angle is wrong.

Yes , and  if you read my comments above, I think I have that problem, also the grain on the neck block inside the body is vertical if it was part of the neck I would think I would see endgrain, I have seen three cheaper guitars now with the neck fit flat to the outside of the body and pinned with regular ( spiral flute) wood dowels, my epiphone among them.

 Thanks for the comments, I'm going to restring and do a bit more careful evaluation

Peter

Thanks for this info

Peter

Larry;

 just looking back over the comments and saw yours. I did what you suggested  I had bought an aluminium  flat bar 1"x3" I clamped it to the fingerboard side of the neck. I think I shimmed it a bit to induce backbend, I set an iron at high heat on top for an hour or perhaps a bit more and then let it cool till morning.  worked a treat.

 thanks for the comment

Replying just to two things you said, Pete:

"a martin is going to have a tapered dovetail". 

Not necessarily. Some of their instruments use bolt technology.

and

"cordoba C5- CE classical with a severe neck bend. I think a reset would help here"

I doubt if it will. A bowed, back-bowed or as you say 'bent neck' cannot be remedied with a neck reset.  Does it have a working adjustable truss rod? 

But then again, it may be a confusion of terminology. A neck reset only corrects the angle at which an otherwise correctly adjusted neck meets the body.  Hmmmmm? Or...is the neck twisted? Could you define your term "bent"?

And hey, those FT series MIJ Epi acoustics make GREAT kindling wood (;  Those were manufactured long before Japan entered its golden age of guitar making. I know...I had an FT series MIJ Epi dreadnaught in 1972.  It, to this day, is the most problem prone acoustic that I've owned. I still have faint remnants of the word "sucker" on my forehead. It was stamped on there by the music store owner when I bought it.

Well, actually, a ''64 Stella was the absolute worst but the Epi set me back $150 (in 1972 dollars. yep....paid way too much) and the Stella was only $29.95+tax and included 5 [count 'em] yes, 5 free lessons form a 92 year old gentleman who was just one lesson ahead of his students . 

I still love our friend Hesh's description of the action on his Stella 'student' guitar. It went something like, "The action at the 3rd fret was so high that you could slice a hard boiled egg with it". Everyone needs to have one at sometime or another just to help us remember how far the craft has advanced since the '60's. They're guaranteed to draw blood within the first 8 bars (:

Pardon my digression but it's 5 degrees above zero with 8 inches of new fallen snow outside and I have tooooooo much free time tonight(: However, it's beautiful out there.....he said....sitting inside...looking out (:

Paul (:

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