Another neck reset question

[Ted Kritikos]

Hi everyone!
I'm doing a neck reset on a 1964 Martin D18.  Right now, I have the neck off and am trying to carefully cut a slice in between the fingerboard and the dovetail with a hacksaw blade, in order to keep that little hump from forming when I glue the thing back on.  The issue is this: that my hand is going to fall off from sawing through the t-shaped metal bar.  It looks like Frank has fabricated a flush-cut circular saw to do this job, but I'm lacking the cool metal-working tools he has.  In the pics on frets.com, it looks like the saw slices through the bar at the intersection of the "T" (if that makes any sense).  This intersection is up off the fingerboard a bit.  Should I be aiming my hacksaw blade there, or should I just try to plow through the wide part of the bar flush to the fingerboard, i.e., the top of the "T"?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated by my aching fingers.

[Ned Knepp]

Hi Ted,
I'm a bit confused. I don't now what you are talking about. Would it be possible for you to include the link to the procedure on Frets that you are looking at?

I'm no expert and I'm not sure I understand the "hump" part of your problem. In my (limited) experience, a neck reset is done to return the neck to it's original orientation so I don't understand why there would be a hump under the fingerboard at the neck joint. It's certainly possible that I'm missing something but I just can't think of any reason that you would need to remove any material from under the fingerboard with a standard reset.

Ned.

[Ted Kritikos]

Frank is working on a 1937 Martin D28. Check out day 17. It shows the procedure in question.

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Blogs/37D28/37d28_4.html#17

As he explains, due to the changed angle of the neck, the back of the dovetail pushes up the fingerboard and makes a hump if you don't cut it free of the fingerboard.

[Ned Knepp]

Now I understand. The neck resets that I've done (few) have been on archtop instruments with floating extensions and I haven't (yet) run into this. I'm glad this came up because I would have missed it on a flat top.

[Greg Mirken]

I use a Fein Multitool with a metal cutting blade and cut flush against the fingerboard. This doesn't eliminate the hump, you understand, it only reduces it.

[Ted Kritikos]

I'm thinking about getting one of those. Do you use it much for guitar repair? Is there a particular model to get?

[Greg Mirken]

Mine is the basic one with no speed control. I have used it more for non-guitar-repair projects, actually. It sure makes short work of those truss rods.