I decided to have a go at resetting the neck of my Hondo 12 string before I give up on it and buy something else. It's not worth enough to pay somebody else to do it, but it sounds good enough for the odd time I need it so if I can sort it out myself then I'll keep it. The only neck reset I've done before was on a ukulele, which went really well, but I've not had the balls to attack a proper guitar before.
So...
Had a bit of time last night and got the fretboard off cleanly using a hot knife. At this point on the ukulele I could get steam into the neck joint, but here it's obviously covered by the top. If I take the truss rod out presumably I should be able to see part of the neck joint down the hole... but the truss rod feels pretty firmly attached. Do I need to slacken the truss rod off then just lever it out, or will it be attached somehow at one end or other? Should I drill holes in the top to get at the joint?
I'm quite prepared to write this guitar off if I screw it up because I've had it for ages and it didn't cost me much, but if I can make it nicely playable again it'll be a bonus.
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sometimes those rods are glued in - or at least the aluminium channel the rod sits in is glued in
do you have a picture of the internal heel block. as this neck has no tenon I imagine it will either be bolted or doweled in place. if its botled you should see evidence inside.
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it depends - the pics make it look like there isn't a neck pocket at all and its just but jointed, in which case you shoudl find some dowels in there.
but its thats the case you would also expect to see some seperation of the heel away from the body. Can you take a picture of that too, back of the body by the heel?
Is the neck straight? depending on the neck join it may be best to treat this as one that cannot be rese,t and look at putting a tapered shim undereneath the fretboard you have already removed instead .... really depends on that neck join - but you do have options!!
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