HTS Remove Set Neck

Necks stretch over many many years of use, the wood itself stretches and also the glue joint that holds the neck on can also creep.

This guitar is around 40 yrs old, the neck angle is far from ideal, we need to remove the neck, set the new angle and refit.

This walk through is on how to remove the neck safely.

Time to repair approx 2 hrs.

We place it onto the rear tongue section of the fretboard, heat the area up to 80 degrees celcius for around 10 minutes.

Moving the heating caul forward we heat another section of the extension.

Again with spatulas we work the glue joint until we come up flush to the edge of the guitar.

Guitars are generally painted with the necks fitted, if we attempt to remove the neck without breaking any paint line, there is a possibility of paint tearing off the instrument.

We lightly score the joint with a razor blade.

Repeat for the other side.

Using another neck for point of reference here, Im simply sitting another neck on top

With my donor neck you can see the join of the neck to the body exists between the 14th and 15th fret of this guitar..

We heat and remove the 15th fret.

Apply some protective low tack tape around the area we are going to be working in.

This is an aluminium caul, that has recessses for the frets, I have modified this unit (red wires) and fitted some heating elements into the block.

Then we work the softened glue with some spatulas.

Like so