Thanks for the suggestions. I talked to someone I have used in the past (not named here) who did not want to touch a Guild that might need a neck reset. I will try some of the names here.
Jim
Reasons for that reputation of "extremely difficult to reset" that have been mentioned here before:
1)The large area of coverage for the hideglue due to Guild's wide but shallow heel and dovetail joint.
2) The potential for the hideglue to be contaminated with metal shavings causing extra friction against movement even when glue is soft enough to release. (That one was documented by Flip Scipio, well-respected luthier who worked at Guild in the '80's).
Note that problem is probably restricted to pre-Fender (very late '95 take-over) guitars.
3) When neck is different wood than heelblock, different expansion rates under steam keeps neck too tight in the joint. That one seemed to be the problem with a JF30-12 with maple body and 'hog neck, even after at least 2 full days under steam.
It seems most luthiers expect a joint to break loose after 3 or 4 hours or maybe overnight in extreme cases.
4) Joint is finished over and needs careful scoring of the lacquer, which can also function as a barrier against good steam penetration to loosen the glue, there's a poor or no escape route to the outside of the joint for it if the lacquer penetrated the joint.
My casual memory of percentages says we've seen successful reset stories (including a couple of excellent photo-essays here) in like a 3-1 ratio. I can only recall 2 "failures" including GJM's.
If you've got a sympathetic luthier, knowing of those potentials going in might help him plan his strategy.
