1987 D 55

[mclkar54]

He is Dan McCarthy- pretty well known Luthier in the Dallas area. He admitted defeat. Truthfully not enough steam in the old steamer to melt the glue if memory serves.

Steam is the key. ive had to make a few different tools to get steam into certain areas.

 

[wileypickett]

14th is where body and neck meet ,at least on my guitars, and guitars ive done resets on .

The 14th fret is where the neck and body join, yes, but the dovetail joint pocket is where you need to inject your steam in order to soften the glue that holds the neck on, and that's under the 15th fret. (Unless you're working with a 12-frets-to-the-body guitar, in which case you'd drill into the 13th fret.)

There's no pocket under the 14th fret -- drilling there you'd be drilling into solid wood. (Unless you drilled your holes at a steep angle, rather than straight down. Maybe that's how you got steam into the pocket?)

There's lots of "how to" info on this procedure on the web. Here's someone steaming off a Martin guitar neck, via the 15th fret. The same process is used for all 14-frets-to-the-body type guitar.

Martin Guitar Neck Reset | Neck Removal & Resetting To Lower String Height

 

[adorshki]

dont know if its a wivestell or not. ive done 3 guild resets , not really any harder. They do use a different glue, that seems to take a bit longer to heat and release ,but i havent encountered any extremely difficult ones

From what era(s) were the reset jobs? Hide glue was the glue in Westerly at least, and as far as I've seen credibly reported, they started using Titebond on necks in New Hartford ('10-14).

Anyway, re "special glue", noted luthier Flip Scipio worked at Westerly in the early-mid '80's IRCC and described the glue pot as being basically continuously topped up without any regular cleanings, to the point the glue even became contaminated with metal shavings.

THAT certainly may have been a contributing factor in breaking loose at least some necks....

But otherwise think the majority of reports here reflect your experience. The "hard to reset" thing does seem to be a myth based on extreme cases.

Also, they finished over the neck joint, so that's quite likely to require NCL finish touch-up for a "complete" job.

Br1ck mentioned the flat heel and that has been shown to be a legitimate point of concern re potential splitting under compression by our member CristopherCozad who also is a luthier.

Cozad Guitars Home page

Home page of Cozad Guitars. Luthier Christopher Cozad builds and plays handcrafted acoustic guitars.

cozadguitars.com

Couple of Guild reset photoessays there.

 

[wileypickett]

Our own Heath Finnie had neck resets done to a couple of his Guilds. The one with a single-piece neck came off intact, but the one with a three-piece neck was problematic.

For Heath's luthier, injecting steam into the dovetail joint pocket to soften the glue there also softened the glue holding the three pieces of neck laminate together.

As the glue slowly released and his luthier pushed the neck up and out of its dovetail, two of the three pieces came up, but not the third, a corner of which separated from the other two parts and broke off, remaining attached to the dovetail.

His luthier was able to do the reset and get everything neatly back together (I've seen the guitar -- he did a great job) but Heath says the experience has made his luthier a little skittish about doing future Guild neck resets.

(I hope I have the story right -- correct me if I'm missing anything Heath.)