Interesting unusual find on a 1930s fretboard...

[Kerry Krishna]

 I have never seen anything like this before and thought I would post it here for your perusal.  I have had this axe for almost two months, and ,though I know that the fretboard had been worked on sometime in the past, did not look closely enough, because the  guitar played just fine. All of the frets have been taken off the fretboard, and some kinda dark brown glue used to raise the frets up off the board to about half again as high. The following photos were done on manual setting on my new 1k Canon, and I just had my first lesson with that setting this last weekend. You can (clearly?) see the diamonds of the fret tang through the glue under the frets. ... So have any of you seen or heard of this before. 

[East Side Guitar Repair]

Hey Kerry,
I worked on a Kay Kraft a few years ago for a client. Before replacing the fingerboard, I installed a truss rod and two carbon rods to support the fingerboard over the body. The repair turned out great.

Here is a link to some photos
Kay Kraft

[Kerry Krishna]

East Side. I tried a few days ago, posting a Facebook link to the Kay Kraft Guitar site that I started a few months back. This stupid NING site will not let me post it, or any of the photoessays that I have done on my repairs. I hate NING.

[Ned Knepp]

Kerry,
You used the "Add Hyperlink" button next to the camera shaped " Add an Image" button? If it won't work you should still be able to type out the URL on a line in the body of the text. We can cut and paste the line into our browsers and find the pages.

Ned

[FRANK]

Very interesting neck joint i like that I may try this my self has anyone built this neck joint before what is it ?

[Kerry Krishna]

Frank, it is not a solid joint at all. Many possible reasons. One is that on these guitars, the shims are all made of softwoods, and the other weak point is that there is only one bolt, but it IS a huge one. The necks on these move side to side very easily. I personally think something like this could work, but I have not put enough thought into how that would be.

[FRANK]

maby 2 bolts ? and some registration pin for side to side ?

[Ned Knepp]

How about insetting the slip plate into the head block to eliminate one point of twisting. Perhaps the raised tongue on the slip block could be made a bit taller to help keep the neck from twisting on the plate.

I seem to remember reading where someone on the web wrote about making one of these slip plates from ebony but cautioning that the plates are pretty exacting and not easily reproduced. Maybe a machined metal plate would be the answer. It could be inset into the sides and headblock then screwed in with 4 screws on the corners. It could be that this joint would require the same amount of precision the Taylor neck joints requires.

Ned

[Kerry Krishna]

Slip plate! What an excellent descriptive word!. Ned, there was a guy who wrote about making one and how hard it was, but I am sure with the proper jigs, that this would not be a problem. So the slip plate COULD actually be inserted into the endblock. The other thing from were I am sitting if it was going to really be done would be to widen the heal of the neck considerably, so it would have a squarer-er footprint. And on the inside of the neckblock, there could be 4 half inch long slots to accommodate the 4 bolts. But Frank, I am thinking that 3 would be enough.

[Ned Knepp]

I think the slip plate could be inset IF you either built another guitar or made one thicker so the scale length stayed the same.

I agree that a wider heel might probably be stronger. I was thinking that the the bolt must place a LOT of strain on it. Do you know how long the screw in the heel is on these necks? I know you aren't supposed to remove them for any reason but I wonder if they are long enough to reinforce the heel so it won't crack in the middle.

Ned

[Kerry Krishna]

Here you go

[Kerry Krishna]

And..

[Tim Mace]

Truly one of the more interesting threads..the suggestions are right on..if making from scratch I'd use 2 smaller
female hex(key) bolts w/inserts(brass into neck). Involved and advanced work but looks worth it for a clean bolt on and artistic.Like FF I might have to give it a try someday.Cumpiano's bolt on techniques are worth a look too.