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Happened across this video - guy claiming to ‘reset’ necks by using steam/heat on the neck block area while clamping the neck back to a favorable angle.

https://youtu.be/UTVzGM1Znv8

Anyone ever tried anything like this? He says in the video that he expects luthiers will be skeptical and I am. My gut says any improvement from this method will revert relatively quickly.

I’m not looking for a new method for guitars with dovetail necks but I see my share of “unresettable” Asian guitars (some quite nice sounding and not cheap) which end up in landfill due to a deteriorating neck angle. Tempted to try this on the next DOA junker they comes through the shop and see what happens.

It's possible, but I wouldn't trust it because I want to see the open joint with my own eyes to judge.

And guitars should never end up in a landfill because they can always be considered raw materials. I save all the hardware, and take the guitar apart if I can. I have reused backs for smaller guitars, mandolins and ukes. Save the sides for patching materials or to test finishes - same with tops. Pull the fingerboard for reuse, or save it to train newbies in fretting.

In some cases, I have strung them up with silk'n'steel strings for beginners to learn on. I hate to waste anything. It really has to be a plywood nightmare before I'd kill it.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I'll just add that while I have never tried the steam reset or "slipping the neck block" I have done the cut off and convert to bolted butt joint reset on my personal old Yamaha. It worked well and was completely controllable as far as getting the neck angle I wanted. The guitar now has good geometry and is very playable.

He's slipping the block otherwise known in California as a Michigan reset and in Michigan as a California reset because neither place wants to get any of this on us...

It's a poor practice and can result in a ruined instrument and often does.... This is the process that I have told the story repeatedly here of the lawsuit that resulted from a very good Luthier at a high quality shop attempting this because the neck would not come off (A YarI) and he destroyed the guitar. When finished the neck angle was worse, it had a massive body hump and they still could not get the neck off..... The business had to pay the customer for the instrument and there was a lawsuit either filed or threatened and then they settled. This was a very experienced, excellent Luthier who was trying to help and it went south. His abilities were top shelf in all respects and it even happened to him..... Everyone lost and a guitar was destroyed.

You are brute force distorting the body and not only does the neck angle change but stresses all over the instrument are created and yes, it does not last nor does it revert to a safe, as it was state either reliably.

He says why take the neck off if you don't have to and that's where he's mistaken, you do have to to do quality work, do no harm and return the new angle to factory new WITHOUT harming other parts of the instrument.

Remember a quality neck reset should have very little if any evidence that it was reset and that's why we use black lights at times to try to detect a reset neck when the job is well done.

Lutherie has a number of past, poor practices that people picked up often because they worked in a vacuum and in my experience were breathing their own air. If you think that I am being less than kind good, that's my intent this practice ruins instruments and should be avoided. Trying to be crystal clear here.

Thanks guys, that sheds some light… it makes sense that he’s slipping the block. It didn’t occur to me at first since the only time I saw a guy slip the block in person, he removed the binding, went in from the outside with a hot knife, then after the angle change he trimmed the extra back overhang and put the binding back. I wonder what’s going on inside the box with this steam-through-the-soundhole method? You’d think the back center reinforcement would need to be cut shorter too…

Freeman, I agree that bolt-on conversion is probably the best long-term fix on a cheaper guitar. Sometimes though I can’t even find a price that works for both me and the customer to do that work.

Chris, I agree it’s not good for guitars to go to landfill - I don’t like waste either. I do salvage hardware if the owner abandons the basket case at my shop. I fix up guitars for the local elementary school and maintaining a stockpile of salvaged cheapo tuners and bridgepins is vital!


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I'm guessing this technique came about as a derivative of a neck reset on classical guitars built in the traditional Spanish style where the neck and neck block are one, and the sides slip into the neck. Thus the neck cannot be removed.
Fortunately neck resets on classical guitars are not very common.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I have heard about this before,but I always revert to the “too good to be true” adage. I would never try this with a paying customers instrument. I may try this with my own POS I don’t care about?? But even then to set up everything and start the process one may as well go the full reset and do it correctly. I understand the time saving viewpoint but I’m with Hesh on this. There’s just too much not seen that needs to be accounted for. I get the ol “bad idea genes” from it.BUT I would like to do it for the know not what to do experience. Maybe on an Esteban but even then why waste the time??


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Look at the massive board and clamps he's using to clamp the poor thing into submission as well. This is brute force intentional body distortion to attempt to force a neck angle that is not naturally occurring.

He's also doing it to an Alverez beater likely a $300 guitar on it's best day AND with a doweled neck joint..... NEVER intended to be serviced or reset.

This is not a neck reset this is hack work and a travesty and I'm literally offended that anyone would be this abusive to someone's possibly beloved guitar.

He also says a neck reset normally costs about $500 and takes a day. More BS and the video is only several years old. A proper neck reset will typically benefit from some time after the neck is removed for the block and neck to dry back out after all the steam and moisture used in the process. A couple weeks is not unreasonable.

No mention from him that a proper neck reset may require finish touch-up and blushing removal and that takes more time making a reset ETA of a month not unreasonable.

And zero mention that whenever you change the neck angle or remove an acoustic guitar neck at the very least a precession fret dress is required because of all the trauma that the fret plane went through. This also ups the price for a quality neck reset and there's more too.

We no longer offer neck resets and haven't offered them for nine years now instead offering something more realistic and what we call "the whole nine yards" which at a minimum is a proper neck reset never rushed letting the instrument dry out before resetting the neck and a precession fret dress. A new compensated bone saddle is included and should be as well because nine times out of ten the saddle has been taken down to nothing leading to the time it needed the neck reset. And a guitar that needs a neck reset often will benefit from new frets, shows bridge plate wear and needs a bridge plate cap and the bridge may be starting to lift and just not noticed yet.

We did a 37 Martin recently for a pro player and his neck reset included a refret, new saddle, bridge plate cap, bridge removal and reglue and we rebuilt the tuners too. $1,200ish and even a bit north of that at times if there are loose braces, cracks, etc.

Quality work take time, costs a fair price and should never detract from the value of the instrument.

He also mentions shaving the bridge another poor practice from the past that is frowned upon these days except in very specific circumstances such as Martin intentionally using a too tall bridge as they may have done in the past and it's no longer needed.

He's off the mark and promoting three steps back in Lutherie and someone needs to say so. Again this is what happens when someone is not exposed to main stream, professional practices one way or another and dives in fearlessly ******-up the valuable personal property of others. Sheesh the horror. It's also what happens when someone takes on things that were never intended to be serviced while all the while remaining clueless to the fact that they are breathing their own air.... Hack work!

Good thing StewMac doesn't sell and ship these.....

Sometimes I go too far.....

Makes sense. I made a little sign for the shop explaining to customers that:

Do I really need new strings?

A setup requires new strings

A new nut and/or saddle requires a setup which requires new strings

A fret dress requires a new nut and/or saddle which requires a setup which requires new strings

A refret requires a fret dress which requires a new nut/and or saddle which requires a setup which requires new strings

….

The point not being to sell more strings but that these services are additive and build on what was done before - and to hit the end result of a great playing guitar there are parts of the process that should not be skipped.

Customers take a moment to read the sign carefully, then gesture to their horribly corroded 10-month-old set of elixirs and say “cool hey so can you just put these back on after the dress?”

Is that an early design sketch for Dan E’s neck jig?


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Slipping the block seems like a violin trick called a New York reset. I guess they got stuck with the name!

On violins it is far easier. They have no bindings. Get the neck and block loose from the back, and move the neck down and the block in. It seems that the bottom of the block would need a slight wedge put in it. I did one to raise neck projection on an early one I made. We are only talking about maybe 4-5mm at the bridge here, so the bridge isn't like.a postage stamp.

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Why be normal?

LOL a preproduction model. Don't get me started on new strings I once offered to throw someone down the stairs who was driving a Benz because he smugly looked at me after I took the time to explain the value of new strings and said "do I really need new strings..." He was booted and denied service. Next.

Yet another state or town that does not want credit for the practice.

Josh and Hesh - Since I haven't had a new client in ages, the ones who have been with me for decades know to include new strings in the gigbag or case. My constant refrain to them is "Strings are the cheapest things on your guitar, and the easiest to replace". And they know I have plenty of strings in stock should they forget...

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Don't go giving them any ideas...

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Peter Havriluk

Has anyone here used resistance heaters for neck resets? I like the idea of it leaving a 1/16" diameter hole which would be covered completely by the fret.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUmADZc7JNY&t=13s

Barry I’ve just started experimenting with hot wire cutters, sold as tools to sculpt foam:

https://hotwirefoamfactory.com/035P6_6inch_Pro_Hot_knife.html

Not entirely sure if they generate heat through resistance but the hole required is definitely small (around 1/16) and easily hideable. In my experiments so far I used two of these cutters simultaneously in holes at the 15th fret, one each side of the truss rod. They work quick - I pulled the neck off a cruddy late model fender flattop in about five minutes. The odours emanating indicated the dovetail (and the heel of the neck…) had been glued with CA.

They are less bulky than the stewmac heat stick.

I’ve never used them on a customer guitar. But the reason I gave them a try was I saw photos on social media showing them in use in the shop of a well-known NYC repair guy.

Those are neat. I’m very tempted to order a pair. Josh, did you need two power supplies to drive twp? Or, is there a cheaper way to power them?

Now this is something I haven’t seen before! Nice, me thinks I’m going to explore this further!


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Yes, I did get two separate power supplies. Mine are smaller and simpler “wall wart” supplies, in comparison to the $100 units I see on that site now. I think each heating element was supplied with its own power supply as part of a kit - around $50 for the heater+wall wart.

I’m in Australia and we’re on 240v power so the local importer must be supplying locally-sourced power supplies.

It’s possible that any DC wall wart of correct output could work… I’m on my way to the shop now - when I get there I’ll look at the ones I’ve got and see if output voltage is listed.

Ok - wall wart output is 6v 2000mA.

The foam cutter I’ve got has a 1/8” headphone jack (!) so wall wart requires 1/8” female connection. Trip to your local electronics parts store and you could make one up fairly easily.



The element requires you to drill a hole about 0.043” / 1.2mm minimum. I just drill 1/16” or 1.5mm as I’ve got plenty bits that size lying around.

Good data. Thank you very much. A two amp usb charger (5.2v) ought to be close enough. Just knowing that it’s 2 amps and 6 volts is good. I bet the cutter doesn’t care if it’s ac or dc. I’m going to get one and play with it.

I found one in Amazon thwt included the power supply for $21. I’m going to play. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.