Vega Parlor - Neck Reset / Unusual Neck Joint

[Steve Baker]

First off an apology because all I ever do is ask for help around here. I should do a better job of checking in more often to pay it back. You guys always have great feedback and I thank you in advance for this one.

We received an early Vega parlor guitar with elaborate fretboard inlay, several cracks, bad neck angle, etc. We knew it wouldn't be like a typical neck reset, but expected at least a dovetail or semi-familiar neck joint. But when the drill bit didn't find a gap, we decided to remove the tongue and see what was under there. Here's what we found.

The thin strip of mahogony there appears to be the neck itself. No appearance of mortise or tenon. It almost resembles the Taylor NT neck where the whole neck heel is recessed into the body (if so, the builder did an amazing job.) If that's the case, it's going to be hard to dial in the right angle - pulling sandpaper won't be possible... getting the neck out at all is going to be hard.

So does anyone have experience with resetting neck angles on something like this? Thanks again fellas!

[Steve Baker]

ok, so these are a some great points. Scale length will be taken into account but honestly I'm not even there yet. My biggest blind spot with this one is just the fact that when i go to put the neck into the body there is just a looseness of everything that I'm just not comfortable with. When I do traditional martin neck reset or any dovetail joint i get to a point that glue might not even be needed. The joint itself just aligns thing up and locks everything into place. I still feel like I'm missing something here. If I were to even just dry clamp this guy right now I wouldn't be able to trust things staying put let alone with glue in there and things start really squirming around. It almost seems that ill need a long bar clamp to go heal of neck/to butt of body while i put downward pressure on the fingerboard. But i know thats not right.  I appreciate all the help guys. but I need some more 

Oh by the way. The fingerboard is now glued onto the heal. picture makes it look a bit more unaligned then it really is. All that stuff Im not worried about. It'll look great. Im just needing help with the dovetail stuff

[Eric Steven Johansen]

Steve, I get the impression your joint has expansion/contraction issues from age. A thin veneer of Rosewood in the two sides of the joint should correct that. They will need to be paper thin so as not to raise the neck up out of the joint. Using rosewood will make them invisible once your completed.