Guild D212NT neck removal - wimpy dovetail joint observation

[Mark Pollock]

I was very lucky a couple of weeks ago, and picked up a nice Guild D212NT made in 1982. It had a loose neck, so I got it for $125 - a steal.

I loosened the fingerboard extension today, and the neck popped right off. No steam, no wiggling, no pulling.

The joint was clearly not well sized. The glue was holding the neck on, not the joint. In the pictures I have attached, you can see the white areas where there was glue contact, and a whole bunch of nice shiny dried glue that never made any contact anywhere.

This should be a breeze to fix - I'm going to make a slight neck angle adjustment, since a straightedge hits about 1/16" below the top of the bridge. Then a few shims, and some careful fitting, and I'm in business.

Anybody else ever see this kind of problem with a Guild? I thought these joints were famous for being chock-full of glue and impossible to budge, but this appears to be the exception. Or perhaps they were filled with glue to take care of lousy joint construction? Either way, this seems pretty odd and unusually sloppy. Everything else on this guitar seems really tight and has very little wear. Almost no fretwear, the bridge plate looks brand new (nice rosewood for that, and what an odd shape), and the finish shows some heat damage, which is probably what killed the neck joint. All the braces are solid, there are no cracks, no gaps, nothing else wrong with this beast. I feel really lucky here.

Mark

[Bob Gaddis]

I have an F212XL that needs a neck reset. i've been putting it off for several years, dreading it. Maybe it won't be so bad.

[Tim Mace]

This wouldn't happen to a well made bolt on..........lol

[Mark Pollock]

Yeah, I noticed that too. The angle of the dovetail is really shallow. So lets see - very little contact, and a shallow dovetail angle. On a 12 string. What could possibly go wrong?

I don't think I can do anything about the angle, though, so I'll just have to fit it really well. There is a tiny voice in the back of my head saying "Just make it a bolt on!", but I think I'll ignore it.

[William F.Eden]

I would take that tiny voice's advice and do the bolt on you will not be sorry you did. Bill.............

[Greg Mirken]

All the Guilds I have reset had similar neat, well fitted dovetails, not chock-fulla-glue messes. There is always very little taper in the joint, though, so your shims will wind up paper-thin when you reset it.

[Jeffrey L. Suits]

I'm firmly in the bolt-on conversion camp....

[Eric Steven Johansen]

Nice guitar and you did score. Here's my suggestion on the fix. Recut the sides of the dovetail joint in the headblock to increase the angle, match said new angle on the sides of the neck tenon, mill up two shims of sufficient thickness and glue them to the neck tenon, and then reset the joint. Done and stronger than new. Best of all no loss of collector value.