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In the process of dry fitting the latest neck repair, I realized the truss rod was really tight (over 2 full turns to neutral). This made me check the neck level. The notched straight edge tells me the finger board is dead nuts level. No light shinning through from behind. Putting a straight edge on the frets revealed a wide disparity in height. From .032" at the 10th to .045"-.050" at the ends. Assuming I can get the whole thing down to .030" level, can I reasonably expect to get a playable neck out of this? My crown files are only about .025" deep. If this is an iffy situation, I may be better to part it out now, and not mess with what will be a difficult headstock repair to begin with.

Opinions?

.030" is about the same as the fretless wonder Gibsons. Some people love them.....some people not so much. But it should be playable

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Brian

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It depends.... It depends on what kind of set-up is required for this instrument and it's respective player. You didn't say what this instrument is which is part of the information that would be helpful in understanding what you want to do.

When ever a neck is removed and refit a fret dress is a very good idea. It's standard fare for us with neck resets and included in our price. Point being that the fret plane and the level set of the fret plane is so very important to playability that doing a fret dress is a given.

My guess at this point would be sure, so long as you can level the frets with a precision leveling beam and recrown them you should be good to go. I've had to crown frets only .015" high and used a three corner file for these so it's not only possible but frequently done.

Now when I say fret dress what this means to me is using bluing, not perceived light through a gap in a straight edge. Instead I'm looking for a level of precision that is accurate to the thickness of one swipe of magic marker ink.... More specifically sub .001ish".

Where this level of accuracy gets important, and it frequently does... is the shredder who wants action of 2/64th" at the 12th for the high e and 3/64th" for the low e. We have jazz players who love action this low too so it' not even a music style thing but much more a player preference thing.

Less accurate approaches will work for standard specs on say a D-28 with action of 4 and 6 with 12's and 5 and 7 with 13's. But again who's going to be playing this one has bearing on just how level your fret plane needs to be.

The taller frets at the ends is problematic but can be dealt with too. What's problematic about it is that the fret radius is not the board radius on this one. The frets are flatter than the board. Big deal? Nope, again a precision fret dress can restore the board radius or lessen it if you chose. What's most important is to see the frets as the strings do, strings are a natural straight edge. So if the frets in respect to the strings are level you will be good to go even with taller fret ends. Consistancy for the player will suck a bit but some won't notice, some won't care, etc. or you can take the ends down to the height of the middle as well.

This is one of the points that I try to drive home about why precision fret dressing chops are important for builders too. There are a host of issues that can be attacked with creative fret dressing and in all cases the solutions are pretty easy to both do and understand. It's our ability to shape the user interface to the instrument, pretty important in my view.

One last thing. Crowning files often come deeper than we like them. You mentioned that yours will only crown .025" or taller. We take our crowning files down further so that we can crown .015" simply by milling the outer edges back the needed amount and then safing the edges as a hedge against marring the board. Of course a three corner file was and remains a solution too that can work very well as well.

Sorry, you're right, it's an Epiphone Tribute +. And "neck repair" didn't really describe the issue. It is a headstock break that I suspicion may be the result of over tightening the truss rod. The surface of the break is really jagged compared to the previous "fall over" breaks I've seen. In the process of dry fitting the headstock to see how it was going back together, I realized I couldn't get the head to sit flush with the neck. The truss rod was holding it up. It took more than two complete turns to get it back to neutral. With that done it sits down fine. This prompted the neck check.

While I've seen magic worked on the forums with much worse breaks than this, this will be the most complex one I've attempted so far. I just didn't want to spend the time getting the headstock on, only to have an unplayable neck. Hadn't thought of milling down the file. Great tip. That's why I come here, to learn from the best.

Hey Allan too bad we are too far apart for a short drive and a great time talking Lutherie or I would invite you over and we can throw that Epiphone in our neck jig that David Collins created and glue that puppy back together in short order.

The break that you have there is pretty common, very common with G*bsons and a product of the very slim, ergonomic necks and truss rod placement with no reinforcement. They most always can be repaired seamlessly and stronger than new when finished. The trick as you already found out is being able to clamp on three axis. You want to be shoving the headstock down onto the neck, keeping things aligned from side to side, and at the same time clamping downward on the break area.

Most pro shops that have lots of experience with these kinds of breaks make a jig at some point. It would not be worth it for you for one break likely but perhaps you can ask local shops for a hand and if they have a clamping jig.

If you do want to take a road trip to Ann Arbor we would be happy to help - always!

Thanks for the offer Hesh! Actually this will be the third one of these I've done. I have a jig that is loosely based on Mr. Collins apparatus. I just haven't added the hold down clamps for the additional axis clamping. Guess I will now.

The biggest problem is the fingers that were left on the pieces. I'll have to carefully carve some of the joint to get it to go together. More education.

That's right Allen and that is often the hardest part, manipulating the fibers to get them all to fit together. When clients call with broken headstocks we advise them to not mess with it at all, tell them that if someone else tries to glue it together all bets are off, and to get it to us asap. Usually they do.

Sounds like you understand the process very well my friend and I am sure that you will do fine. If you need any help or have any questions feel very free to PM me here.

Is that neck Mahogany?
Sure don't look like it to me.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Looks like the ubiquitous North American White Wood, aka mystery wood.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

From the Epiphone site:

"The Heart and Soul of A True Les Paul
The Epiphone Tribute Les Paul features a solid Mahogany back with a solid, carved hard Maple cap to create the ultimate combination of warmth and bite. The solid mahogany neck with a hand-fitted, glued-in joint extends well into the neck pickup cavity, creating maximum neck-to-body contact and acting almost like one continuous piece of wood. Combined with the Mahogany/Maple body, the result is a tribute to Les' timeless guitar design with the sound that you can only get from a Les Paul. Color finishes include Black Cherry, Faded Cherry, Midnight Ebony, Midnight Sapphire, and Vintage Sunburst."

Surely they wouldn't lie to us?
Actually the pics just make it look lighter than it is. Overhead fluorescent will do that.

That's White Mahogany and the primo stuff that only grows on a deserted island that Sarah Palin can see from her window. Highly coveted stuff and rings like a bell if you hit it hard enough.

Seriously even today's Epiphone with decent electronics can give a G*bson owner LP envy. Most of the Epiphones that I work on and that's a considerable amount of them too have this same wood, likely maple no?

By the way G*bsons break in that same spot frequently and some more than once. Most of the time when a client calls and says that their head stock broke it's going to be a G*bson...

Update:

I affixed the headstock and had set this aside in favor of simpler fixes. Getting back to it, I went across the frets with the fret rocker and marked all of the high ones. Then using the tang of my dial calipers, I measured across the individual frets for height. When I found as much as .007" difference from one side to the other, I realized that there was a seating issue. So I went across them with a dowel and small hammer. Low and behold, most of the problem children (there were 10 to start with) sat down to a much more even distance from the fret board. Does it still need leveled? Sure it does, but not as much as before. I have two concerns based on what I've seen.
A) What are the chances the ones that went down will stay down? What's Epiphone's record with hammered frets? Were they just improperly seated to begin with or is there a problem with the retention and they'll just jump back up later? Should I just go back and glue the bad boys down?
B) Several of the frets were high in the center. With a bound fret board, I'm curious if the binding may have pushed a fret up in the center that was a little too long. So will the current seating be a temporary thing?

Looking for opinions and experience here.