Removing and re-attaching a neck?

[ed84246]

I have a wonderful ESP, George Lynch M-1 tiger guitar. It's a great guitar, great in every aspect...except for the fact you have to remove the neck to adjust the truss rod. I'll refrain from theorizing about the wisdom of the company for such a set up (on what is one of their higher end models mind you), but the point is, truss rod adjustment is very important to me as it can really wake a guitar up or give it more snap.

Right now there's no relief on the guitar, and I really was hoping to avoid paying a tech 50 bucks or whatever it is.

So...how difficult is it to remove and re-attach the neck and do it properly? I'm worried about not having a tight enough fit, or too tight, or not having the right neck angle, etc.. How precise does this need to be and do I need any measuring tools etc...?

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated - thanks.

[patpark]

you should just be able to loosen the neck screws and lift the neck up enough to get to the truss rod adjuster. once its adjusted tighetn the screws and you shoul dbe good to go. if you have other issues like high action, but bridge is all the way down you may need a shim. but if you don;t know how to diagnose this, i would take it to a tech.

if its just a truss rod adjustment, do it yourself and use the money you save to buy some ham.

[RvChevron]

I have a wonderful ESP, George Lynch M-1 tiger guitar. It's a great guitar, great in every aspect...except for the fact you have to remove the neck to adjust the truss rod. I'll refrain from theorizing about the wisdom of the company for such a set up (on what is one of their higher end models mind you), but the point is, truss rod adjustment is very important to me as it can really wake a guitar up or give it more snap.

Right now there's no relief on the guitar, and I really was hoping to avoid paying a tech 50 bucks or whatever it is.

So...how difficult is it to remove and re-attach the neck and do it properly? I'm worried about not having a tight enough fit, or too tight, or not having the right neck angle, etc.. How precise does this need to be and do I need any measuring tools etc...?

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated - thanks.

Remove all strings.

Use a clamp to "gently" keep the neck in place.

You might want to use two pieces of thick paper on the fingerboard area between where the clamp comes into to contact with the "frets".

You want the clamp to push the fingerboard, NOT the frets.

Slowly loosen and remove all the mounting screws.

Loosen the clamp. Remove the neck, adjust the truss rod.

Place the neck back to the neck pocket, gently push the neck in if the pocket is tight.

Push in the "neck end" slightly in first.

Repeat the clamp procedure.

Before putting the mounting screws back, you might want to put the low and high e strings back on just to see if the alignment is right.

Just do the whole thing slowly. You can skip the clamp procedure and use one hand to keep the neck in place while loosening/tightening the mounting screws.