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 Balladeer Neck Reset Finished
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squirrels |
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| I TAKE NO RESPONSIBLITY IF YOU TRY THIS ON YOUR OWN. This past weekend my dad and I did a neck reset on my beat up Balladeer 1681. Honestly, If I would have did this on my own I would have definitely given up considering it didn't go as smoothly as planned. My Balladeer had a sunken top, extremely high action and a slight gap in the bridge when I first got it. I sanded the saddle lower the string height, but it left almost no saddle exposed, a local luthier shaved a little of the front of the saddle down to expose more and took some more of the saddle off, leaving the string height at 7/64" (low E) and 5/64" (high E), which left it playable, but uncomfortable. Despite the condition, I really like the guitar, it sounds fantastic and since it's a super shallow it's extremely comfortable for me to play. I waited until I went to visit my parents to tackle this job, my dad is an excellent woodworker with a full workshop. I'm OK, but I live in a condo and have no tools. Thanks to the thread by Tremor which gave me the general idea on how to do this. Step one was to remove the neck. I removed the rosette easily with a pick, but didn't realize that it was also under the fretboard, the small piece underneath broke off, but the rest was intact. Oh well. I started by unbolting the neck with a 7/16" socket wrench. Next step was removing the fretboard from the body. I started by using a sharpened putty knife on both sides of the board. About halfway through, we heard wood splinter and crack. I figured that something was already broken and took a deadblow hammer to use on the putty knife to finish the job. A piece of the top splintered off, still attached to the neck.   I cleaned up the gap and fitted in a piece of pine. My dad epoxied it in place and let it set overnight before filing it down.  The next morning I used a Dremel tool with a sanding wheel to bring the pine down, I finished it with a sanding block making it flush and to clean up the top a bit. The body was pretty much ready.  Next step was to clean the fretboard extension off. My dad used a pocket knife to remove the extra wood that was still attached and the Dremel again to clean it up some more.  | |||
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| squirrels |
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To shim the body I used three pieces of black card stock (no picture), I thought it might be to much, but I went with it anyway. To shim the neck, my dad used very thin oak edging which he epoxied to the end of the fretboard and tapered down to match the thickness of the paper.  Finally we set the neck into the body, epoxied the fretboard down, clamped it in place and reglued the rosette.  A few hours later I strung it up and EVERY STRING FRETTED OUT. I was right, too much paper was added. My dad suggested loosening the bolt and adding shims to the bottom of the neck to compensate. A piece of thin cardboard and a little less neck relief did the trick. just fine. It's not the prettiest looking of jobs, but neither is my Balladeer. Now not only does this guitar sound fantastic it plays just as good. The gap around the neck/body joint is minimal  The fretboard body joint isn't too sloppy (tough to see in the picture).  The break angle is GREATLY improved.  The action is set at a low and buzz free 4/64th on both sides. i had to use two shims under the pickup to make up the difference for the low saddle height, which exposed some of the pickup. I used phenolic since it's plentiful at work. I will be ordering a(nother) new saddle from Ovation shortly to give it a little more height and to allow it more coverage. I'd like to thank my dad for helping me out and Tremor for documenting his reset. I just wish it went as smoothly as his. I think I realized where I went wrong. No beer was involved. Thanks for reading. | |||
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| martinez |
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| squirrels |
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| TAFKAR |
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Joined: April 2008 Posts: 2985 Location: Sydney, Australia | |||
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| squirrels |
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