So, it’s very common, very-very common to run into cheap or lesser value at least guitars that require a neck reset. Spending the money required to hire a luthier may not be in the cards… so, what do you do? There are a couple of different methods of “kamikaze” neck angle repair, where you either fully or partially ignore the dovetail and install a threaded rod. In this case I had a Chinese built “Ritmuller” guitar that my friend Andrea had purchased at an auction. The neck had no dovetail in the first place, it was a simple butt joint with a couple of brad nails holding it together while the glue set. The saddle was a plastic generic model that had never been trimmed for this particular guitar and had folded over and cracked. I replaced the saddle with a preformed “bone” model (huge improvement) and re-attached the neck using a strap knob to hide the rod. Now in this instance I was lucky enough that the neck was already detached and the neck angle set up very well without fully removing the neck. As i do more of these, I will post them as well with the different projects numbered.
You can find some very good instructions on how to perform a complete “kamikaze” neck repair here at the Harmony Database. (NOTE: the Database is currently down, I am told they are in the process of moving it to a different server. I have substituted an archived link for the time being)
