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Hello all you knowledgeable folks, 

I am planning to reset the neck but have been unable to find any information on how it was installed. This particular model has a single bolt neck, with a stud that goes from the heel through the neck block, with a nut inside, but there is no gap to indicate it is removable as though the guitar was finished after neck installation.  

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks,

Jim

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Hi Jim
Sounds exactly the same as my FT570. It's a multiple dowel joint, seems the bolt was only used to clamp it together while the Asian mystery glue set up. Conversion to bolt-on is the default solution. The strap pin screw can be replaced with a bolt through the heel, as the existing single bolt will not be enough. I'm still working up the courage to do mine, let me know how it goes with you!

Ian,

Thanks for the information, 

I'm in the same boat as you, even though the consensus is that these are inferior guitars with little or no collectible value, It sounds very warm and has the nice 3 piece back with the large curly maple inset, so I didn't want to destroy it in my attempt to remove the neck.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks again,

Jim

Hi Jim, I was looking for information on resetting the neck on the '70s epiphone acoustic guitars.  Did you do the reset?  I just got one in my shop that clearly needs it and noticed the bolt in the heal block and wondered how much of a job it turned out to be.  Any info would be helpful.  Thanks in advance, Joel 

Joel,

Yes I did, and it was a Pain.

Found out that they seem to use some kind of epoxy, under the fret board and also to secure the neck. 

Unfortunately I attempted the standard heat/steam method on both. It did work for the fret board, but by steaming the pocket I only managed to loosen the hide glue they used in the lamination process. Of course when I applied some pressure to it, the heel stayed attached to the top layer of lam, and it pulled it away from the body. I ended up, Sawing from the bottom of the heel up to the fret board. If you elect that option, try to remove the stud that is threaded into the heel, You will end up with a nice flat surface.

I made way more work for myself, but managed to get it repaired and it did come out very nice, dropped the action at the 12th from 1/4" to 3/64ths. 

Any other questions feel free to ask,

Jim

   

Jim, I appreciate your quick response...Seeing that bolt on the heal block was surprising and made me think that they actually made some provision for an easy neck reset.  There isn't much info on these and this forum is really the only place that has anything credible.  Thank you, you saved me a lot of work!  I don't suppose that you took any pictures?  

The guy who owns the guitar doesn't want spend much on it even though it is a pretty good guitar.  I will try some other ways to get the action down.  Thanks again, Joel

Joel.

I have a few but will try to shoot you 3 since the site limits me to 5MB and the pics are about 3.8 each. I just got a new computer and haven't put on my photo software to re-size stuff yet so if you want more, I could send them to your regular email. if I had it. If it takes all three, the first is the neck where it joins the body, the second is the body with most of the loose lam removed, and the third is the .017 patch which i glued to the body.

Jim

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Nice pix Jim, very helpful!  Did you drill out the dowels and replace them, or did the steam get them loose?

Ian,

My original thought was to use at least the upper dowels, So I took the time to drill them all out with a smaller drill bit, steamed them, then used a puller to extract them. I didn't think they would come out given that they had used the epoxy on the neck, but they used something different on the pins. Either way taking the time to remove them from both the body and the neck and to map out the patch with the holes for the pins was a waste of time. I had to remove so much material from the heel to get the action correct  that the dowel holes would have been at different angles. This thing was really off. I ended up having to take .103 off the bottom of heel. Which posed another problem the fret board end floated above the body so I made a spruce tapered spacer, and added binding to it, then glued it to the fret board. see attached.  

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Wow, that's some reset. 12 string tension strikes again! My 570 isn't that bad, fortunately. Like your idea of steaming out the dowels.

Fortunately have lots of time, and this was purchased From the original owner's Widow for $100.00. There was lots more wrong with it, that I found during the clean up. I knew it had non original tuners, But the guy kind of hashed lots of things, he used a regular .468 drill bit clear through the head stock for the tuners that measure .391 on the back and .291 on the face, plus used 12 left hand tuners rather than 6 & 6..   

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Jim, Thanks for posting the pictures.. as Ian said, very helpful for anyone who ever decides to tackle that job- it would have to be a labor of love or sentimental attachment, since the value of the guitar doesn't really warrant that amount of time.  I'm curious about the saw you used to cut through the heal. 

Joel,

I used the Stew Mac flush cut saw part #3614, I had either side of the neck on the body taped of course, plus I had already released the fret board from the body. With the body clamped down I  applied a little pressure to the back of the neck as I went, which seemed to help. As I said before you really need to get the threaded stud out other wise you will never get it apart, without damage to the body laminate. They even had the epoxy around the area the stud passes through, and clear up onto the 5 ply binding, I think in one of the pics you can see some missing which I repaired.

Jim 

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