You may find yourself in need or want of changing your electric guitar neck. Your frets may be worn, and you don't want to spend the time re-fretting. The fret surface may be worn from extended play. You may want to change over to a compound radius neck. Whatever the reason, if you own an electric guitar, with a bolt on neck, changing it out is a pretty easy process.
In this example I'm going to swap the guitar neck on my custom natural ash bodied strat. I'm doing this for two reasons. I've got some electronics under the pickguard that I need to get at every once and a while, and I really wanted a 12 diameter, maple neck on this guitar.
After the screws are removed, gently wiggle the neck out of the neck pocket in the body. Some necks are in really snug and some will fall right out.
Guitar Neck Construction
The neck I'm going to install is a 21 fret neck. As I mentioned above I need to get at the electronics under the pickguard, and with the 22 fret neck that was on this guitar, I had to remove the neck in order to remove the pickguard. Note the photo below showing the difference between a 21 and 22 fret neck. The 22 fret neck extends out over the pickguard.
This particular guitar neck was a little wider than the neck pocket on the body. This is an important cross road depending on your skill level, and what you're comfortable doing. I'm not afraid to try anything, whether I know how to do something or not. But screwing up your guitar body may be something you're not willing to risk.
If your willing to take the risk then lets move on. Carefully measure the neck and the neck pocket and determine how much material you must remove. As a footnote never try and force the neck into the pocket, you will break an edge off of the pocket. Using a dremel tool with a fine sanding drum carefully remove an even amount of material from the low side of the neck pocket. Try installing the neck often through out this process. You want a nice snug fit, but you certainly don't want to remove too much material
How To… Reset A Levin Neck
Now if you are installing a 22 fret neck, and you get it to fit snugly, as in the photo above, you're ready to drill some holes and install the neck. Move down to the clamped neck photo, and follow the drilling instructions. If you're installing a 21 fret neck, as I did, you'll need these next few steps.
One of the nice things about a 22 fret neck is that it overhangs the pickguard. This in turn covers the fact that the pickguard does not match up to the neck radius exactly. So if installing a 21 fret neck, you'll need to grind some of the pickguard to match perfectly.
In the photo above notice that I'm grinding at an angle. Having a sharp edge will help the neck fit more snugly. It also makes hand sanding the edge of the pickguard easier. Once you get the pickguard ground close to fit with the dremel tool, use some 400 grit sandpaper to make the edge perfect.
Bolt On Guitar Neck Reinforcement
It is imperative when grinding, and sanding, that you take your time. You can't check the fit of the neck in the pocket often enough
Once you have the guitar neck fitted perfectly to the neck pocket, it's time to drill some holes. Use a C clamp or similar to hold the neck to the body. Put some cardboard between the clamp, and the fret side of the neck for protection. You don't have to clamp down hard, just so the neck is snug. I used a 7/64 drill bit for this installation, but screw sizes can vary between guitars. Your best bet is to use a sample block of wood and drill some test holes for best screw fit.
Place a piece of tape on your drill bit to set the depth. Drill as many holes as you can with the clamp in place. Reposition the clamp to drill the final hole(s). Remove the guitar neck and blow out all saw dust. Put the neck back into the neck pocket and fasten it to the body using the neck plate and screws. Put some bees wax, or soap, on the screws before installing. Remember to tighten all screw down in a cross hatch pattern. Don't tighten one screw all the way in then move to the next, you want a nice even tightening.
Simple Guitar Repairs: How To Align A Bolt On Neck
Once the neck is in restring the guitar, and your almost there. Check and adjust the action if necessary, then check and adjust intonation. I'll have a tutorial on guitar setup coming soon.Our pal, Anders Osborne comes into our shop with unique requests on a fairly regular basis, but this one takes the cake. He had a custom Delaney guitar built for him using some cypress siding from his house that he’s been hanging onto since it was ravaged by hurricane Katrina. Mike Delaney used the cypress for the top and Honduran mahogany for the neck and body. The guitar sounds killer and really means a lot to Anders – especially since it was built to replace his stolen ’68 Les Paul Deluxe. But there was always something missing about the feel and the sustain of the instrument, and he was convinced it was due to the guitar having a bolt-on neck, as opposed to a traditional Gibson style mortise and tenon set-neck. So he brought it in to talk about converting a bolt-on neck to a set-neck.
There’s nothing wrong with bolt-on neck construction, but it has different tonal characteristics than a set-neck. A bolt-on has a brighter, snappier attack on the front end of a note, due to the string vibration transferring through four metal screws and a metal plate. It’s a great sound synonymous with that classic Fender tone, but it lacks the resonance and sustain that a set-neck has when the two pieces of wood are bound by glue. Anders was looking for the latter in this guitar, so I figured out a way to make it happen for him.
I removed the neck and sketched up a plan for cutting a mortise into the neck pocket. Then, I sanded the area flat to give the impeding neck heel a square mating surface.
Smg Guitars » Repair 10002
That was the easy part. The next phase was to fabricate a neck heel/tenon. I decided to make two small dovetail joints flanking the truss rod, so I glued up a three-piece quarter sawn Honduran mahogany block to match the existing neck lamination.
Then, I cut the dovetail channels into the neck and the tenon block. These cuts have to be dead-on, otherwise the laminations of the neck and heel wouldn’t line up, and that’s no good.
After I snapped the test fit into place and it looked good and well seated, I glued the tenon to the neck.
Reasons Why Guitar Neck Screw Inserts Are Better For Bolt On Guitars.
Setting a mortise and tenon neck angle is basically the same process as setting an acoustic guitar dovetail joint. For this guitar, I set the angle of the heel to align with the Tune-O-Matic bridge at it’s nominal point in up and down travel, and centered the string lie to be symmetrical with the neck edges.
Once I got the neck angle where I wanted it, I carved and shaped the neck heel. This is much easier to do before gluing the neck to the body.
Since it used to be a bolt-on, I just used the existing screws and holes to glue and clamp the joint. Worked out perfectly!
Talk To Me About Shaping The Heel On Bolt On Single Cuts
I let the glue joint sit over the weekend, then took the screws and neck plate out and doweled the holes, first by recessing 1/8″ dowel rod, then capping the holes with mahogany plugs following the grain pattern.
The conversion definitely made a noticeable tonal difference, and now the guitar has the Les Paul vibe Anders was going for. What a fun project and a cool guitar!
Hi, I'm Aaron. I'm a custom guitar builder and stringed instrument repair tech by trade, and a musician and stage tech by night. I write and record original music under the moniker Atomic Tortoise, and I play bass in the New Orleans rock band Them Ol' Ghosts. When my hands aren't on a guitar, I'm probably out riding motorcycles somewhere...
0 Response to "How To Remove A Bolt On Guitar Neck"
Posting Komentar