Acoustic guitar neck removal

[btjjdb]

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"Originally Posted on: Sat Aug 07, 2010 5:42 pm"

Hi All,

A quick question for those of you who do repairs etc.

How do you go about removing a neck from an acoustic guitar where you cannot see how it's attached ie dovetail or tenon & mortise or bolt-on?

A couple of years ago we bought our son a cheap Phoenix PF-390M Grand Auditorium Acoustic guitar, but it is miles too big for him and we then bought him a 1/2 size nylon string guitar, which is better sized.

For a cheap guitar it sounds really good. It sounds even better now, as I found it never stayed in tune. Anyway I went to adjust the truss rod and found the nut was completly loose. I tightened it and it has stayed in tune for the past 2 weeks.

Anyway, to get to the point, because of my carpal tunnel I find it difficult to play sometimes and am looking to experiment with different neck shapes and fretboard radii and scale lengths to find the best that suits me.

I'm thinking of trying to remove the neck and build new bolt-on necks and use this guiar as a test bed.

What do you guys think and can it be done?

regards

Brenden

[Allen]

If you look through the sound hole and don't see any bolts then it's not a bolt on. Check under paper label as sometimes they hide them under one. If it is, simply undo bolts and perhaps you'll need to release the fret board from the top if it has been glued down. Most all will be.

Then if you are wanting to experiment with different necks you might want to reuse this fret board. Take the fret board off first then it might give you an idea of what type of join it is. Will also make it a tad easier perhaps to get the thing off by injecting steam into the joint.

The other option is just to cut the thing off next to the body and then treat the body like any other one and either rout a mortise or dovetail and build neck to suit.

[Puff]

Brendon is there a possibility that the nut you tightened was actually the neck attachment rather than a truss rod?
For sizes and shapes it might be easier to haunt a local shop and try everything from baritone ukulele upward.

[btjjdb]

Hi, Thanks for the replies.

Puff, I'm sure it was the truss rod I adjusted. There are no other bolts or stickers that may have bolts underneath. As for different guitars, the scale length on my Mini Maton EML/6 is 3/4 or 579mm. I know this scale length is ideal for me as the last 3/4 size Acoustic I had was an Applause(Ovation) AE13.

WIth the mini maton the body is so small that where my arm goes over the body presses on the nerves and I lose all feeling in the strumming arm, while I sometomes cramp up and I go numb on the other hand.

At the moment, I'm using my Yamaha FGX720SCA with a capo on the 2nd fret and detuned back to normal tuning. Effectively making it a 3/4 scale dreadnaught with cutaway. It's working OK at the moment, but still not a perfect solution.

I was going to get TimS to build me a guitar to my specs with some timber I supplied, but it turned out to be all backsawn and not usable for back and sides. I may need to save some more money up to go down that path.

Another option I have been considering is building something similar to the John Pearce Stick on arm rest.

regards

Brenden

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