How can I tell if a hollowbody needs a neck reset?

Dano

Junior Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2010
Messages
62
Reaction score
1
Location
Western Mid-West
Hello Folks!

I'm new here (I've been lurking for a few weeks)...

Anyway, I have my eye on a mid 60's Guild CE100D at a local music store, and the neck angle seems a bit flat (compared to my es175). The bridge (stock, it seems) is as low as it will go, but it is strung with very light strings and the action is extremely low. Pickup height-wise, things look normal (meaning they aren't cranked visibly low to accommodate the strings).

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
 

yettoblaster

Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
619
Reaction score
0
Location
Santa Cruz, CA
I'd say if the action is very low then you can crank up the bridge a little and then it will not be bottomed out anymore, but it sounds iffy because light strings may be a symptom.

How is the neck, backbowed? If so it sounds close to the limit and maybe will need a reset soon.

Sometimes you can get a few more years before resetting by grinding on the bridge some.

I wouldn't compare it to an ES-175. In my experience those have bigger angles than say, a Gretsch, which seem very "straight" to me: almost like a solidbody electric.

Different makers and eras have a variety of angles. If the bridge is bottomed out and you need still lower action, it's time to grind (or reset the neck).
 

Walter Broes

Enlightened Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2005
Messages
5,892
Reaction score
1,962
Location
Antwerp, Belgium
Unless you want to put a Bigsby on the guitar, a fairly flat neck set doesn't have to be a problem - and is fairly typical for archtop Guilds.
 

kakerlak

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
2,354
Reaction score
128
Location
Oklahoma
Yeah, it kind of depends...

If the action is really low, then it's at least probably close to reasonable. And if there's any relief in the neck, then tightening the truss rod will bring the action even lower. So you're probably ok for now.

Guitars can need a reset for three reasons:

1) the neck joint has come loose a bit and started to pull up, out of the neck pocket. A good way to check this is to see if you can slide a dollar bill into the neck joint. If so, then it's no longer completely tight and glue-sealed.

2) the neck has been pulled forward and into the body. In this case the actual joint is probably still tight, but the neck just may not be sitting at the same angle. Extreme cases where the top braces have failed and the top has collapsed can occur, but are pretty visually evident. Slight shifting/compression is hard to detect. One tell tale is the bridge: as the neck pulls in towards the body, the bride has to sit increasingly further back to adjust for the change in neck position and keep the guitar intonated. If you see the marks from where the bridge used to be and they're in front of where it is now (and the intonation isn't flat) then this may be going on. The flaw to this is that so often people have the floating bridge sitting in a spot that's way off anyway, so you kind of have to use it as supporting evidence, rather than definitive

3) the factory neck angle is just off. Every once in a while you see a guitar that's all solid and in place, but was just off from day one.

All three of these, including #2 (unless the top is seriously caved in), can be fully corrected by resetting the neck at a better angle or, as in case #1, just regluing it firmly.

Back to your guitar, though... Heavier strings might pull the neck into the body a little bit, but probably not a lot and, if they make the neck bow up more, you should be able to counter that with the truss rod. I wouldn't be super worried if the glue joint look solid and the action is low, even with light strings and a bottomed-out bridge. Guild archtop bridges are kind of tall, too sometimes, so you may be able to get away with sanding down the base or the bottom of the top part or swapping the top por wit a new one, etc.

Morning ramblings...
 

Dano

Junior Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2010
Messages
62
Reaction score
1
Location
Western Mid-West
Thanks for the info folks! The next time I visit the store I'll have some very specific things to inspect on the instrument...
 
Top