I never considered a doweled joint. I guess I have no choice but to saw off the neck. Ugh!

I've removed two necks like that (yes they are doweled) and I made new necks (Mortise and tenon bolt-on), routed out the mortised and attached. Made good student guitars when I was done and could provide you excellent practice.

With all of this said just what exactly is this excellent experience for? What are you learning to do that will have commercial demand or any demand for that matter? If making student guitars is your bag put out the word that you accept donations to repurpose for the homeless and vets, that's what we've done and we don't have to make new necks to help someone.

WOW! I went on vacation just after I posted this and haven't returned until now to find this. To answer your question: Much of what I learned was self taught. The experience I had of building and attaching those necks at the time was invaluable to my learning process and I wasn't worried about screwing up a good guitar, in the process I returned 2 unusable guitars to playable. Now I have a business in which I have no need to advertise. In fact, I stopped advertising and took my website down because I was getting to busy, I do all my work on referral now. I have more than enough repair work and a build list that is on average 20+ waiting. So to me it was "excellent experience." Apparently to you it is not.

Wait... If you've been on vacation since you posted this almost 6+ months ago. How have you had time to do all this work and build a business?

From experience and time spent in this trade, It's a bit odd to me that you'd delete your website, usually if your business is doing well you want to have a website even if you don't think you need it. A website is required to succeed in business today, there's simply too much money floating around with people online. Why wouldn't you want to take advantage of that?

Well I probably worded that a little wrong. I left on vacation just after I made the post but didn't return to the forum until the other day, so in all I was gone from the forum for over 6 months not from work. Additionally, I deleted my website because I am retired now and don't want the additional requests I get from it. I only work PT now and have more than enough to keep me as busy as I'd like. My point was that those cheap guitars can be good to learn on for those without a lot of money to invest that are interested in luthiery. Yours and others experience may be different but it does not invalidate mine. I never said I did this to service the guitars, I did it early in my career to learn on but when they were done I wasn't gone to just throw them out. They were given to 2 young kids from my church interested in learning to play and couldn't afford their own. Hope that clears things up.

Sorry DanKirkland but did you even read the original first post? The OP said he "bought a cheap Fender Squire Acoustic Guitar off of Craig's List as a sacrificial guitar that I could use to practice routing a binding channel." Obviously, HE is not a pro but is in fact trying to learn new skills. I simply posted that "I've removed two necks like that (yes they are doweled) and I made new necks (Mortise and tenon bolt-on), routed out the mortised and attached. Made good student guitars when I was done and could provide you excellent practice."

My intent was to be informative that "maybe" if he wanted he could use the body for further experimentation as I did (rather than toss it away if that was his plan). When I was learning that's one way I attempted to do it. At NO TIME did I say a professional luthier, such as myself, should engage in this kind of work and I have no idea why it was interpreted that way.

As far as the disconnect. I have already retired as a luthier from a successful business I started and now I do it for a few select loyal customers because I like to, so I am quite familiar with the challenges of staying in business.

As to you wanting to see pictures of the guitars that ain't happening because I did this work in the 70's and had no camera or need in my mind to photograph the work back then. But here's a pic of one of my builds to satisfy your curiosity.

"MUCH OF WHAT I LEARNED WAS SELF TAUGHT." The experience I had of building and attaching those necks at the time was invaluable to my learning process and I wasn't worried about screwing up a good guitar, in the process I returned 2 unusable guitars to playable.

"That is a nice guitar, but again I'm not sure why you're showing it? Why didn't you just say that you did all that work in the 70s in the first place? I wouldn't have been bugging you for pics if I had known that." Because when one challenges another to provide pics it smacks of disbelief, i.e. that that person is lying. I provided the pic as a bit of evidence that I know somewhat of that which I speak

Let me put it this way. When Hesh made the comment about the experience not really having any practical application, you proceeded to write your statement about having a successful business and all the details on that.No, I did not state it that way. I first said "To answer your question: Much of what I learned was self taught. The experience I had of building and attaching those necks at the time was invaluable to my learning process and I wasn't worried about screwing up a good guitar, in the process I returned 2 unusable guitars to playable. I was referencing a valuable learning experience that helped me on my way to developing a successful business. I never presented it as "work" I presented it as "a learning experience" knowing full well there are other ways to learn (I taught numerous guitar building classes and have many "grads" out there).

In my opinion and experience it's better to practice on something that will have at least some form of payoff down the road. Agreed but the payoff does not always have to be monetary, my payoffs were the look on those kids faces getting a "by-product" from my learning experience, as well as learning how to cut a mortise on a body and make a guitar neck. And I agree on the Harmony's I cut my teeth on those as well and turned a whole bunch of those around with neck resets, brace conversions, re-tops, you name it I probably did it to a Harmony.

I'm not trying to invalidate your opinion here, just kind of trying to figure out why you're so adamant on this rather menial issue? Why come back and make a fight out of it 6 months after the fact?I was not trying to make a fight out of it. When I posted my learning experience and its value to me to the OP who was posting a similar learning experience, I was taken aback that someone would criticize that experience in such a manner. Perhaps I was over sensitive but I would never devalue ones experiences that way.