Stuck Dovetail

[DavisLee]

This is the kind of thing that once again makes me feel like such a rookie but I'm sure you guys can help me through it like you have in the past.

O.K., I'm at the point of just doing a little preliminary fitting of the neck prior to lacquering the body and neck separately. All I've done to the dovetail neck so far was to remove vey little of the wood from the inner part of th tenon cheeks, as instructed in the StewMac dreadnought book and DVD...no problem then inserting the neck into the neck block but for the life of me, now I can't get it out. Seems simple enough, what goes in must come out, right? However, I've tried every way of removing it as gently as I can so that I don't risk cracking the rosewood sides and back or spruce top and it won't come out, it's like a Chinese finger puzzle.

Suggestions?

[tippie53]

you may have to tap the heel with a hammer.
not a big deal

[justrfb]

A sharp (not "hard") strike on the heel of the neck should pop it loose... It should pop loose with no more than a quick effective tap with a small hammer. Maybe plastic tipped if you are worried. I used a small strip of wood between the hammer (metal) and the neck heel. Good luck...

Sincerely,
Rich

[B. Howard]

Sounds like a proper fit to me.

[DavisLee]

Found the problem...at some stage I had removed my masking tape from the end of the dovetail neck that was there to keep the truss rod from sliding out. Apparently, this had allowed the rod to slide into the adjustment access hole in the neck block and preventing me from being able to remove the neck no matter what. Embarassing, but good news is the neck is out and no damage to anything.

[tippie53]

that is good news . Trust me , there are some funny first timer boo boos , my favorite is the glue the neck block on upside down . The other is one that glued it on backwards. He had too much wine LOL
We are here to help and please never feel embarrassed . I actually placed a bridge on at 24.9 for a dred. I drilled right through the X braces.
It was one of the best sounding guitars I done.
Yes I still have it and no long term problems.

[DavisLee]

John,

Thanks for your support and for sharing...you know how good it feels to solve a problem like this without any damage, no matter how embarassing (will sleep better tonight)...will just keep building this vast database of lessons learned. The other good thing about discovering this, was that I wondered why no matter how clean I thought the dovetail/neckblock fit was, just couldn't understand why the fretboard extension was a little more above the soundboard than it should have been and by sliding the truss rod back into position of course brought it down much better.