Takamine Neck Reset

[Dave Domizi]

Hi All,

After a bit of research, I though I'd go to the hive mind. I have in an older (late 70's?) Takamine F-360, essentially a Martin copy, that has a fairly high action that would benefit from a neck reset.

A few questions:

1) After removing the 15th fret, I've been unable to drill in and hit the air pocket of the neck joint. Anyone have info of the joints in these guitars?

2) There's a good bit out there about these joints being assembled with epoxy. Is this the case for this era/model?

3) If I can't get definitively drilled into the gap in the neck joint, is there any point to attempting to steam the joint apart, or should I settle for a slotted pin bridge with super-low saddle? I try to never do that, but I'm not sure that the guitar calls for a bolt-on surgery.

Thanks for any info!

Dave

[Jay Lowe]

Dave - Over the years I've only done work on two Taks. One with a standard - albeit tight - dovetail with wood glue and the other with a rather sloppy dovetail with every nook and cranny filled with some type of marvel mystery glue (something that would scare Epoxy to death). That one got it's neck sawn off and converted to a bolt-on, which may be an option in your case. In all honesty, I try and avoid doing much work on Taks. While they do make a somewhat higher-end series of guitars in addition to their low end, I've never been asked to do any work on those. Good luck.

Jay

[Dave Domizi]

Many thanks for your info!

- Dave