A Twist in my customers Neck 70 fender ?

[FRANK]

Today a customer who happened to have a 70s fender strat has really bad twist in the Neck I have seen this but don't do to much with it. I have done a 80 P Bass I had the frets out and was prepping it for inlayed fret markers out of rose wood and decided to give it a twist actually heard it pop and felt it to but the end result was a straight neck then proceeded to inlay fret markers and finish the neck..this one has with a bad twist but is this a normal way to fix a twisted neck Just giving a twist by hand? like I said I have only done this once by hand is there a better way ?

[Russell Vance]

Dear Paul,
A little unusual to see a twisted (not bowed) neck on a 70s F, and I will assume it is a full one piece maple neck....I'm not a great fan of mechanical or heat induced straightening (although I know it is sometime the only option) and prefer in the case of electric bolt-ons to defret, and flatten/reradius the twist out by machining.

The problems with this procedure goes to making sure your side dots remain and aren't machined into (the fretboard dots can be redrilled and replaced) and obviously you want the heel to be square and the rest of the neck is machined to follow that relative orientation. The nut slot also cops it and will generally need to be recut and also the peghead face ceases to be parallel with the body face. Also beware of the depth of truss rod (a fine drill through the vacant fret slots will find the depth of the rod which is pretty shallow at the nut end. These are the issues with what we do when flattening/reradiusing any neck.
If it is rosewood slab board you can pop the board, flatten the maple section (the trussrod is a limiting factor here) and reglue it all square and jigged flat. If it is a laminated rosewood board (about 3/32 of rosewoood curved aroun the maple) you are out of luck as you will go through the rosewood into the maple in a heartbeat.
Otherwize heat, overtwist and pray. But wood is like an elephant - never forgets.
Regards Rusty.

[FRANK]

Thanks

[thefishinmusician]

I.m wondering, after once dealing with a twisted, but not bowed neck..It was a 60's Rick and it was in my early days in teaching myself guitar repair..It was not bowed as much as twisted.. I gave it a fret dress, and adjusted the bridge accordingly..It all seemed to work, being that all twists and winds when adressed with even fret work can be compensated for??

[Russell Vance]

Yep, I'm sorry, I forgot the obvious- removing slight twists with a fret level is good practice and oa lot easier if you have the latitude to do so. A long caul such as the Stewmack aluminium jobbers and some stickit paper is a great way to index the frets to each other when taking out the lumps bumps and, in this case twists. Rusty.