Well, seeing as how I got a stewmac dovetail kit 2 years ago, and had absolutely no building experience what so ever, you can bet a neck reset was warranted on this guitar, Haha. With that said, I took on the neck reset process to get it ironed out and to work on fixing all of my mistakes as far as functionality and playability go. I'm currently working on getting this guitar dialed in and set up to optimum playability.
Here's some pictures of the process for those who are interested: (sorry for low quality they were taken on my blackberry)
First off, here's a picture of the shafty fit job I had to begin with. Definitely not too appealing to look at.
Removed the 15th fret and drilled an angled hole to try to find the gap between the dovetail and the neck block to be able to steam it.
Here's the iron setup I used to remove the fingerboard. Heated the iron to 250 degrees, and then set it on the fingerboard and worked on it for a bit until the iron needed to be reheated, took about 3 or 4 reheats before it was off.
This pictures a bit unclear, but it's a modified expresso machine with a rubber hose off of it with a hollow metal tube at the end that goes into the drilled out hole. Bodies clamped to the table with a block under the heel to slowly apply a little bit of pressure before each steaming cycle. Steamed for maybe 45 seconds each try, then wiggled on the neck a little bit to get a feel for it, and applied a little more pressure.
Neck came off surprisingly clean and I scrapped the glue off like it was nothing while it was still tacky. Made for an easy clean up.
Got the angle readjusted (had to raise it almost 1/4 at bridge!!! Under string tension it was about 3/32 higher than with no strings) got the center line, and the neck to body dialed in and it's glued up.
As soon as I take the clamps off, I'll get a picture of the neck to body. Now that the neck is reset, just need to make a new nut and saddle, get it intonated, and then refret it.
Looking forward to doing another reset on my '74 Guild 12 string here with in the next week or 2.
-Dan
Neck reset on my Build #1
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