My first major rebuild

[Ben-Had]

OK, on to the neck refinishing. I used a triple strength red mahogany stain to get a compatible color on the neck to match the Rosewood.

[David L]

That is really looking good!

David L

[Ben-Had]

Did I forget to mention he painted EVERYTHING with that Minwax, tuners too. That was tedious cleaning them up. See that crud on them.

[Ben-Had]

It was tough for me getting that neck block out to repair it. The hardest part was trying to separate it from the rim because it is laminated I cut through a layer and I had to re-laminate the side. I used heated knifes, that I heated up in my new knife heating oven you can see the yellow protective cover in the background). It glued up nice though.

[Ben-Had]

This is a top view of the veneer fix. I used mahogany veneer to complete the repair.

[Ben-Had]

A piece of the back reinforcement strip came up while removing the neck block and I had to repair that as well. Plus install new kerfing for pieces that had been damaged. You can see the glue line on the new laminate piece and of course I had to cut away the dovetail opening.

[Tony_in_NYC]

This is major surgery! Nice work so far!

[Ben-Had]

I glued some extensions to the neck block to help reinforce the area where the laminate piece was put in, I didn't want it to pull away. The I glued the neck block back in. I made a special turnbuckle jig to apply pressure to the middle of the block and to keep it straight for re-gluing the number 1 brace that had been broken loose when the neck gave way.

[Ben-Had]

Number 1 brace being glued back in place to keep things lined up.

[Ben-Had]

I had to remove the top piece over the neck block to get it out and then piece it back together to complete the top repair. I splinted the missing wood pieces and forgot to take photos of it. I think there were 5 cracks and pieces I had to replace/repair.