remove ovation neck

[scott gannon]

Hey folks, new guy here. So I am a rookie trying to learn. I have a 2003 ovation balladeer. It has two bolts holding the neck, is it glued also? Thank you very!

[scott gannon]

Well, Thank You All! Ovation tells me that the fretboard 'tab' is glued to the top. I disagree. I say the heel is too. But, my only interest in taking the neck off is just that, an interest. I saw 2 lag screws and figured that was it. Nope! Removing a glued on neck is beyond my scope of work at this time and it don't need it anyway. I just wanted the experience. But I did get the experience of gluing some braces, fix some cracks, level and dress the frets, make a nut and saddle, put some cleats in, and stuff like that. One crack was from end block to sound hole. No telling what keeps the bridge on. But it plays pretty good  if you can keep it on your leg and the salad keeps for a week! Let the music play on.    scott

 

[Harry G Quattlebaum]

I had a customer give me an old Ovation from 1980.  His story was that, years ago he got drunk and left the guitar in the back of his pickup truck overnight.  There was a thunderstorm that night and he woke up the next day to find the guitar full of water.  He decided to give it to me because he was tired of looking at it.  I glued a couple of spruce braces alongside the A braces to flatten the top and darned if it's not a good sounding guitar!  When I work on Ovations I take off my luthiers' hat and put on my "Git er Done" hat which, along with epoxy and superglue, usually works.  It's not always pretty, though!

[Len Biglin]

I guess the only thing worse is a cheap copy.......The Applause... I have one in for a neck reset, I told him it may not come off etc . No bolts on it but does anyone know what type of glue is in the neck block?Thanks Len

[Grahame Myers]

Probably some kind of evil high tech epoxy that they originally developed to bond helicopter rotor blades laminations together if it's a real Ovation, on a Chinese applause? Original AMG (Asian Mystery Glue), good luck with that one...

 

 

[Mike Kolb]

Franks contribution about doing only straight-ahead fret jobs on Ovations gave me a combination chuckle/wince... a while back, a fellow brought in his Ovation for some fretwork, as the frets were wearing and "chipping" (as he described it).

Once the blasted thing was in-hand, I found out that the fretboard AND the frets were a one-piece cast aluminum unit, and the "chipping" was actually the delaminating of a chrome plating that had been applied to the cast-aluminum frets. 

If memory serves, it was Joshua Levin-Epstein (from this group) that saved the day, as he had a regulation Ovation neck that would fit in place of the aluminum beast. I bought it from him and swapped-out the necks, only after making the customer promise I could keep it!  It hangs in the shop to this day as a reminder to Avoid The Bowl.