Official Luthiers Forum!

Taylor uses some sort of colored seam sealer to fill small voids in their NT neck pocket area. I have a video from them where Bob goes through the whole procedure.

Remember too that if you fit the neck prior to the finish application the .005" or so of material on the top, sides adjacent to the dovetail as well as any build up at the edge of the heel or dovetail pocket will require careful removal and re-fitting prior to glueing. 

This is not one I'm proud of but I'll share the story for others who might find themselves in the same situation.  My problem began when I built the form for the first 12 fret Dreadnought I made.  I thought I had everything lined up and proper angles at the neck and tail block were set.  They were not.  This makes for a very difficult neck set as you can imagine.  I went ahead and finished the guitar as it was an experiement in what could be done with some ideas I had.  I spent a great deal of time getting the dovetail joint to be a perfect fit and finally realized the problem.  I finished the guitar and it had a .5 mm gap at the base of the neck joint on the treble side.  It drove me crazy and I considered every option listed above then realized this was an experiment and not going anywhere so I thought I'd see what I could do to repair it.  I had left-over mahogany from the neck so I prepared an exact shim fit, stained it with the same material, glued it in place and finished it with lacquer and it came out as pictured.  The photo is really enlarged so it is quite hard to find, it would take someone pointing it out to find it.

Do it right the first time, I threw that form out and have a much better one now.   Lessons learned on instruments that are for just such a thing can be a real blessing when it comes time to build something you can't afford to be anything but perfect. 

Bruce

To me, the decision on cover-up vs. fix it with a new set depends on the existing neck set.  In my case, the problem was not the joint. It was tight and solid so I knew I would not have any problems with movement.  My problem was the neck surface at the body, that one spot was not flat and no amount of re-setting the neck would have changed it.  I have no problem pulling a neck out, in the big picture, it's a small price to pay for a good looking and functioning joint.

I knew that to really seal that joint in this guitar, more than a new neck set was necessary so I went with the fix it in place method. I would certainly hope that I will never have to face that again but if I do and pulling the neck would take care of it, that's what I'd do.  I  just screwed up and tried the best method I could come up with to minimize the damage.  The guitar is a player for me, I can live with it.

I think you have to look at all the factors and decide but removing and resetting a neck should not stop anyone from doing things right if that's the best solution.  My opinion only, probably are several ways to look at this.

Bruce

Rich,

I'll probably get pasted for this but hey... What the heck.

I taped the body and neck around a small gap in my neck joint before I began my repair to protect the existing finish. I proceded to mix up a small batch of 30 minute expoxy with a dash of amber tint to match my finish. I then simply used a toothpick to drop in the expoxy until the gap was filled.  I removed the tape immediately and let the epoxy filler set over night. 

The next morning the epoxy was dried to a high gloss (matching my finish) and looked very natural.  My reasoning for not removing the neck was that it was set perfectly and the guitar sounded very good!

This guitar was for me so I did not want to mess with the sound I was getting. I do believe,however, that if this was for a commision the neck would certainly had to have been removed and redone.

Ray