atmarama said:
Please could you folks enlighten me a little more about neck resets - is hide glue is used to "set" the neck to the body? I take it this should be the ONLY substance used for this right? Does a neck reset involve cutting the neck out at all? Just want to have all my facts straight - my usual guitar tech I use, as already mentioned, is what I call "rough and ready". He quoted me a ridiculously low price for the reset, compared to prices you folks have mentioned!
The "set" of the neck refers to the angle of the neck/fretboard in relation to the body of the guitar. String tension tends to pull the neck forward towrds the bridge over the life of the guitar, which results in that unacceptably high action you see. The purpose of a reset is to bring it back to the ideal angle. When the neck's off the guitar the luthier can work on shaving and shimming ts correct the angle before regluing.
The reset is BEST way to restore playabillity to an instrument, because it preserves the integrity of the bridge and saddle which need to retain enough "meat" to do their job correctly, that is, transfer energy to the top without cracking themselves.
Hideglue's the traditional glue used to make guitars, including gluing the backs/tops/sides/joints. It's literally derived from animal proteins: hides and hooves.
Some makers now use modern woodworking glues, "aliphatic resins", the yellow stuff you can buy in hardware stores ready to apply.
IIRC, in a thread about glues, someone pointed out that the modern glues are more prone to "stretch" as they age, and hideglue has the best stability, so yes, it SHOULD be used for that task where there's LOTS of stress.
It requires a lot of slow heat to loosen up for disassembly of any joint in the instrument.
Guild's trademark wide shallow heel creates more surface area for glue than the more common narrow sharp-edged heel. The reset involves only the loosening of the glue until the neck can literally be pulled off the guitar. There's no cutting of the neck per se. Remember that the fretboard has to be separated from the top of the guitar too, so you want someone who's going to take care not to really screw up the finish in that area.
Here, in this thread, is a pic of a freshly separated neck:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=27306&p=295193#p295193
You should be aware that that's one of the CLEANEST separations I've seen on this board, that guy obviously knows how to work it. Do you trust your guy to do it that well? Did he include the refret in his quote? And NOT just a "fret dressing"?.
I'm guessing that anybody who WANTS to do a neck reset on a Guild probably isn't the best guy for the job. The guys who know how tough it is tend to only take on the headaches for good customers and worthy instruments.
A 30 cm ruler between bridge & heel rocks a little, maybe a little too much - but the previous owner says the Bridge Doctor was installed as a precautionary measure - is it definitely true that the Bridge Doctor doesn't detract from sound at all, in fact improves tone??? I would have though you would want the bridge to vibrate directly onto the top as opposed to much of the energy going into the wood that is the Bridge Doctor... Learning much - but I suppose I can live with the Bridge Doctor if it's only doing good work...
