Finished neck reset and refinishing on my second guitar.

[johnnparchem]

Two and a half years ago I completed my second guitar a Martin 28 kit from Blues Creek. When I glued on the neck I think an airlock or just inability caused the neck which set nicely dry not to sit perfectly on the body. I did not notice right away, the end result is the neck angle was just slightly low and the neck was slightly tilted. I set the guitar up and it played and sounded great. The only real negatives the tilt put the high e string close to the edge up the neck and if one looked the neck joint was not quite right.

I have a nephew that wants a guitar, and I thought of this guitar, but properly put together. So I watched John's video and pulled the neck. I did have a stew mac jig which made my life easier. It only took a couple of minutes of steam and the neck popped out.



I pulled the 14th fret and drilled a couple of holes, luckily it is ebony and easy to clean up.



You can see I am all setup up with an old espresso machine and the heat blanket. I heated the iron in an oven as well, mostly I used the iron to hod the pad down, but I did not want it stealing heat. For my repair blankets I have a LMI controller that lets me set the temperature. I set it to 250 degrees and waited about 5 minutes.






One trick I learned from the John Hall video was to use one knife to start to free the fret board and then slide another smaller knife over the top of the first. It really helps avoid sliding the pastry knifes in through the spruce tops.



I have no pictures steaming but you can see the guitar in the stewmac clamp applying just a little bit of stress on the glue joint. Followed by the popped neck with the steam needle I got from Stewmac still in the fret board making steam.




I am very happy with the neck off and no harm to the KTM-SV finish.

[tippie53]

almost done
I did 3 resest yesterday. The more you do the better you get

[johnnparchem]

Looking over this guitar I decided it was too nice not to be properly finished I completely striped the finish on the back and sides using Dad's Easy Spray Paint, Stain, Sealer & Varnish Remover, sanded the sides level and re did the pore fill with zpoxy. The back and sides were dead level before I started spraying. I sprayed 15 coats of EM6000 at 3 mils a coat, I did no level sanding in between any of the coats. It only took about 45 minutes to sand level and buff. I am very happy it is my best finish yet.

[Darryl Young]

Wow, that's awesome John. Very good job.

Did the steam damage the finish at all? If not, did you take any precautions to avoid steam damage? Having the right tools helps a bunch.

[darren]

Beautiful job. Wish I had your spare time. :):):)

Did you just mask the bridge or pull that as well?

[johnnparchem]

Thanks guys,

Darryl, I did not hurt the finish removing the neck. I refinished mainly because I knew I could do a lot better now. All I did to protect the finishes was to wipe up water as it condensed also I through some rags in the sound hole to collect drips.

Darren,

The top was a French polish. I just plan to freshen it up when I am finished with the reset of the work. I did fill the bridge slot with ebony because The bridge was set to the poorly set neck. I am going reslot this weekend.

[johnnparchem]

I have it put together minus strings and final set up. What kind of strings to you put on your D size Martins. I have been using lights on my Os and OO.

I will show final pictures with strings. I refinished the neck, back and sides. I have a FP top so I mostly left it alone, a little freshening up mostly with alcohol.

[tippie53]

you can be proud of that job
nice work

[ruby@magpage.com]

When you stripped the guitar, did the filler get stripped out so you needed to replace it? What was the filler the first time? What chemical was recommended to neutralize the stripper?

Very nice looking guitar - especially for a first attempt!

Ed Minch

[justrfb]

Beautiful work, beautiful guitar...

Sincerely,
Rich