New Neck for an Old Friend

This is a tale about choosing whom you let work on your favorite guitars…..The victim here was a 63 Gibson 335 reissue. The owner wanted the neck shaved, a common mod back in the day but not seen so much today with all the thin shredy necks on the market.

The plan is to save the guitars identity and provide the slim, oil finished neck the owner wants. So we begin with some disassembly and salvage. Here is the online source of genuine guitar parts like Gibson Nashville bridge, wraparound bridge, guitar tuner buttons, strings etc. First up I need to remove the fret board so I use it on the new neck. I do this with a heat gun and some small spatulas. I use heat shields that are made out of heavy cardboard wrapped in aluminum foil to protect the finish on the top of the guitar. I prefer to start at the body and work my way up the neck.

Once the FB is off I can remove the neck. Since I cannot save the neck there is no reason to waste time steaming apart the joint. Here comes the saw! I carefully cut the neck off with a back saw taking care to not actually hit the metal truss rod with my saw. That leaves me a few inches of truss rod to dig out of the portion of the neck still in the body. A chisel makes quick work of that and the neck is free.

I also drill two hole up into the end grain and after the neck shaft is carefully fitted I transfer those to the new work and install two small mahogany dowels to reinforce the end grain joint. No sense putting all the stress on a .060” Holly veneer when we do not need to……I slot the new neck and install the truss rod that I removed under a maple cap. This is done to a non standard depth to provide proper function in a thinner than normal neck. Then The headstock can be clamped and glued to the rough blank.

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