Bolt-on neck + Glue = Set-in neck

[flavorengine]

Surely someone has glued a strat neck on and raved about it's sustaining paul like tones.

Here's the definitions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt-on_neck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt-on_neck)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-in_neck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-in_neck)


Is glue the only thing seperating these two camps?

[walterw]

what an astonishingly bad idea, and yes, i'm surprised that i haven't heard about someone trying it yet.

[David Collins]

what an astonishingly bad idea, and yes, i'm surprised that i haven't heard about someone trying it yet.

Couldn't have said it better.
:bkw

[Soapbarstrat]

I've seen people write about doing it. I'll take mechanical fasteners any day over glue.
But I must confess, I like *Machine* screws better than wood screws.
I like a neck to be able to go off and on without having wood screw holes becoming weaker in the process.

By the way, a pauls sustain usually dies away faster than a strats sustain. Lot of other things that make them sound different.

[EADGBE]

By the way, a pauls sustain usually dies away faster than a strats sustain. Not to my ears.

Anyway gluing a bolt-on neck to the guitar is a really bad idea. For one the change may not even be audible. And two it would take away the biggest advantage a bolt-on has to set-necks/neck-throughs, and that is it's tweak ability.

[Old Fuzzface]

what an astonishingly bad idea, and yes, i'm surprised that i haven't heard about someone trying it yet.

Didn't Fender make a set-neck Tele some years back? Or was it a bad dream?

[Dana Olsen]

Didn't Fender make a set-neck Tele some years back? Or was it a bad dream?The Custom Shop makes the Merle Haggard model which is a neck through.

I agree with Walter and everyone - it's an astonishlingly bad idea. There's a lot of neck-to-body geometry and a lot of woodworking skills involved to build a glueable neck pocket and tenon - it's not just adding glue to a butt joint that's designed to be screwed together with wood screws.

Dana O.

[wavey63]

I doubt it would even hold..but what the hey, you only live once, right?:stir

[brian b]

Real bad idea all set necks (glue in) have a tenon at the end. Meaning an extra piece of wood that will give more are for glue and stability.
See how Les Paul necks are.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/bcbtoby/Neck-Tenon-Length-Comparison.jpg (http://www.thegearpage.net/board/%3Ca%20href=)">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/bcbtoby/Neck-Tenon-Length-Comparison.jpg (http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/bcbtoby/?action=view&current=Neck-Tenon-Length-Comparison.jpg)

[DownByLaw]

I've read that Ritchie Blackmore used to glue his necks on. I guess because of the crappy 3 bolts. (or voodoo)

Patrick

[Rosewood]

I've seen some bad refinishing jobs that were basically glued together.

[Brett Faust]

In case anyone is wondering.
The set neck Tele and Merle Haggard model are both mortis and tenon joints.
The joint is not a simple tenon either,but a well engineered joint with a draw pin to pull it tight. The joint also has very tight tolorances.You could pick up the body with the neck with no glue in the pocket.It is unlike other Fender neck pockets.
So far, I have never seen one fail.

[walterw]

you can pick either one up and see that it's obviously designed completely differently as a set-neck instrument, with an almost "heel-less" neck joint that's nothing like a bolt-on fender.

[Memorex]

I had a 3 bolt strat a long time ago that the neck would slip a little while I was bending strings. I couldn't fix the problem, so I put about two drops of yellow carpenters glue in there and that fixed it. I sold it to a buddy of mine 25 years ago, and he's never tried to take off the neck, so no big deal. Besides, I think it would be easy to crack the glue joint if he wanted to.

[Rosewood]

I had a 3 bolt strat a long time ago that the neck would slip a little while I was bending strings. I couldn't fix the problem, so I put about two drops of yellow carpenters glue in there and that fixed it. I sold it to a buddy of mine 25 years ago, and he's never tried to take off the neck, so no big deal. Besides, I think it would be easy to crack the glue joint if he wanted to.

In a weird sort of way I agree with you.

[flavorengine]

I'm sorry but I can't see that it is a real bad idea to glue a bolt on, but it is OK to glue on a short or transitional neck. See below illustration (thanks brian b)

I can see tht the long tennon having the advantage of more glued on surface area, but not the other two.




Real bad idea all set necks (glue in) have a tenon at the end. Meaning an extra piece of wood that will give more are for glue and stability.
See how Les Paul necks are.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/bcbtoby/Neck-Tenon-Length-Comparison.jpg (http://www.thegearpage.net/board/%3Ca%20href=)">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/bcbtoby/Neck-Tenon-Length-Comparison.jpg (http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/bcbtoby/?action=view&current=Neck-Tenon-Length-Comparison.jpg)

[Bob V]

What you don't see in the gibson cutaway picture is the cheeks - the sides of the tenon are considerably deeper than the sides of a neck pocket on a bolt-on guitar. And a mortise and tenon joint fits before you glue it. If you were to simply scrape out the lacquer coats from the neck pocket (you're not proposing that you glue the neck to the paint, right?) then you have a very loose fitting joint and glue is not meant to fill the gaps so it won't accomplish anything except to frustrate somebody whose trying to repair or refinish down the road.

Sorry but gluing a bolt-on is a dumb idea. Just not necessary and does not allow for the wiggle room that bolted together guitars require to get assembled properly with the strings lined up an even distance from the edges of the fretboard. Set neck guitars usually accomplish this tweaking by adjusting the location of the saddle notches, you can't do that with a Strat or Tele bridge. Different system. They both work. No need to combine them.

[Soapbarstrat]

But if you got a bottle of wood glue and it's gonna go bad if you don't use it up..........

No worse than me super-gluing my glasses to my face, 'coz I figured there's really no good reason for me to take the darn things off.

[Chris Scott]

tell me this thread isn't for real.......