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Can It Be Done?


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Hi

This is one of my crazy ideas that i want to try out on my guitar (greco 1970's bolt neck les paul - pos)

I was wondering if it would be possible to

Fill in the Neck pocket with a piece of wood cut exactly to size and fill in the holes make it look as if it was part of the 2 piece boy, then put a piece of wood on the heel of the bolt neck maybe by maybe a half housing joint (if thats what you call it) and carve it to match the heel and glue it, then route the neck and body for a set neck joint.

can it be done? tell me if i didnt explain myself propelly and i will maybe draw it...

:D

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I've been toying with a similar idea.

The main difference is that I plan to build the body for an existing neck. But since you're planning on filling the pocket, it amounts to the same thing.

Here's what I'm going to try:

I plan to narrow the heel of the neck a bit (take off about 0.5 cm on each side)

BUT I'll leave a little less than 0.5 cm thickness of the full width of the neck under the fretboard (this corresponds to about how much the neck stands proud of the body).

The body will be routed accordingly, a nice snug fit, not too tight so it doesn't push the glue out.

The neck will have contact (and glue) with the guitar in a T-shape--five different surfaces.

That has to be strong enough. I might even experiment with NOT gluing the top wings of the T, and instead trying for direct wood to wood contact.

In your case, you'll have to carve the back of the joint as with a normal setneck.

I've been looking at various set necks for inspiration. Most seem to have longer talons going into the body. Your idea of adding to the heel will mimic that--but I consider it unnecessary.

Because I've been studying my (beloved) Gibson Melody Maker --when I lift the pickguard off, I can see exactly where the talon ends (there's a gap there, as if they accidentally routed too far). And that talon is no longer than the heel on my bolt-on neck. In fact, it appears that the construction is exactly the same as I propose.

And this guitar is 40 years old now, has been dropped several times, went through a period strung up with .11s, and the joint is as tight as it ever was. Oh yeah, and this Melody Maker is a whopping 33 mm thick! (that's um, lemme see, 1.3 inches!). So there's very little wood on the back of that heel...

So this leads me to believe that it is entirely possible to do this.

You want to go first? :D

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I will definitally (cant spell lol) try first as soon as im back in school and have use of the awesome tools, and ive got some good wood to do this on,

here is what i plan to do in a drawed format :D to explain myself better.

Neck

http://www.geocities.com/zoso_atlantic/Neck.JPG

Body

http://www.geocities.com/zoso_atlantic/Body.JPG

Im going to try this soon, well once i get my wood - i am going to retop my guitar aswell as the top on it is horrible and i like everything of my guitar except the colour of the pickups and the top + colour of top back and sides

so im going to strip the paint of my guitar completely everything but headstock lol and refinish it, jimmy page style, im even going to trim the headstock down to his sized one - im crazy, then remove my crappy rosewood fretboard and put on a ebony fretboard with jimmy pages Zoso logo at the 12th fret and maybe parrallogram inlays for the rest as they are awesome.

:D - one crazy canadain - tell me if im a madman B)

also can you explain your T - 5 side glueing theory i dont really understand..

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also can you explain your T - 5 side glueing theory i dont really understand..

A normal pocket is a U shape.

But if you trim off part of the sides of the heel --you get the leg of a T

And the fretboard (and the bit of the neck under that that doesn't get trimmed) forms the horizontal line of the T

i.e.

___ <fretboard and top of heel

| <trimmed heel

So if you count the contact points of that, you get five (because the bottom of the T is still a good 3-4 cm wide)

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I see....

B)

Im going to canada in like 1 week (i live in australia but im canadian :D strange) and i will get some mahoghany for the neck pocket and the neck - then some nice flamed maple for my new top and my project will get started :D hopefully it can be a tutorial for the few who wish to do this.

I just need the les paul templates...... does anyone have them?

:D

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