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Andy's "57" Chet Atkins 6121 Jet. Watch as it gets repaired.

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Apr 1, 2008 11:36 a.m. Deke Martin:

JD, all that you're showing us here is exactly why I DON'T try this kind of thing.

I admire not only the skill and mastery involved, but also the cojones.
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Apr 1, 2008 11:47 a.m. BobK:

This is a GREAT thread!!
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Apr 1, 2008 11:47 a.m. BobK:

This is a GREAT thread!!
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Apr 1, 2008 11:47 a.m. BobK:

This is a GREAT thread!!

Bob
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Apr 1, 2008 12:51 p.m. hypnofonic:

my sentiments exactly!!.

deke said: I admire not only the skill and mastery involved, but also the cojones.
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Apr 1, 2008 1:20 p.m. JackDaniels:

Well thanks everyone. Andy had to have a pretty good size set of balls too. He sent me his lovely gem from California to Chicago without even knowing who I was! For the most part I am just some guy on the forum. No "real" credentials to speak of....

Jazz, no dovetail. I guess I was wrong about the timeframe for neck joint changes. It happend in 57 I guess.

When you see this neck joint, you will see why the 57 jet is so special! A 56 doesn't have shit on 57 when it comes to meat and potatoes!
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Apr 1, 2008 1:29 p.m. senojnad:

What a FASCINATING thread!

I feel like I'm watching open heart surgery -- I'm getting sweaty palms...!
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Apr 1, 2008 1:33 p.m. bielball:

gees! you have me thousand and thousands of miles across the ocean crossing my fingers for this!!!!!
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Apr 1, 2008 1:36 p.m. JackDaniels:

Well let’s see, where did I leave off? Hmm, oh yea, so now the good, the bad and the ugly:

I did not take any pictures of the following steps it took to remove the neck due to having my hands really full…beyond what you see above. This was like a horror film or one of those snake wrestling movies. The damn neck would not come loose!

On Saturday, I started the normal process of applying steam to the neck area and inside the joint. Normally, about 8 minutes later, the neck comes loose. A small amount of pressure on the back side of the heel and she pops out. I started around 6:00pm with the steam figuring I be upstairs watching TV with my family by 7:00pm. Two hours later, over a gallon of water in my steamer and NO MOVEMENT! WTF! Never in my life have I had this much trouble getting the neck out. I barely could wiggle it after two hours of intense steam in the neck pocket. I almost called Andy and told him I give up! This was not coming out! I decided to stop before I broke the neck on accident and try again with a clear head.

Sunday comes around and I spent most of the day moving my Sister-in-law and her husband out of their house to a basement apartment. I was the only other guy that showed up! Nice Dave! We busted our butts and I can home whooped! After dinner I decided to get that darn neck out of that guitar. I had originally told Andy, no problem I can get the neck out of that thing! So I again started around 6:00pm applying steam. This time I drilled two more holes in the fingerboard, one on each side of the original hole. I was trying to get steam up along the side of the joint. I even stood the guitar up on end so steam would rise, and then laid it on its side etc. After 2 more hours, there was no movement again. WTF! I was really concerned that I was going to loose the body on this guitar. Remember, the body was also glued together with hyde glue and is also just as susceptible to heat and moisture as the neck joint. After all, it is still a hollow body guitar. As steam came out the holes I kept wiping down the guitar trying to protect the finish. No luck again that night. I once again went upstairs with my tail between my legs. Of course my wife shows me no pity. (I guess I don’t deserve that much…but that is another story)

At this point I felt like that I had bit off more than I can chew! I think every craftsman has his limitations and this guitar appears to be mine. I wrote Andy again and told him where I was at. I let him know the next steps could be drastic and we would have to assess the final damage to the guitar once the neck came off. But at this point, the neck is not gonna come out cleanly. It was gonna be a handful. Like a trooper, Andy said “We need to get that neck off”…..”And when I say we, I really mean you”. After I laughed my butt off, I told him that “we” would get that damn neck off….and when I say “we” I really meant “I” would. We both had a good laugh.
- Rated: 28 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 1:39 p.m. JackDaniels:

bielball, I had a lump in my throat about 2 hours into getting this neck off. As you can read above, I was really second guessing myself! (something I don't do often..and why I don't get pity from the wife)
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Apr 1, 2008 2:05 p.m. JackDaniels:

Well I guess we have read the bad, here is a little of the ugly. If you haven’t thought this already while reading this, this is why these guys get the money they do….(present party excluded)

Monday night: I decided I was not gonna let this ole’ girl get the best of me! Before I even fired up the steamer, I look this thing over and over again. I check every drill hole; I looked for any place that could have had a hidden pin from the previous work done. Sometimes they hide screws under fret markers etc. I could not find any indication that it was pinned or screwed, but something was keeping it from coming out. Hmm, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, but why in the hell after 2 hours of steam…twice…did this neck not move even a hair?

As I alluded to earlier in the post, there were some signs of possible neck work but it looked really good. Also….hyde glue breaks down in about 5 minutes under steam and pressure. That did not happen! Ok, so a smart man would conclude that maybe this neck was not glued with hyde glue after all. That would suggest this neck was off at least once since it left the factory. The cover-up was really pretty good though, so Andy and I were unsure if it had. I think Andy said the guy he bought it from said the neck joint was original. That was what I was going on. It looked original to me too. This neck joint was REALLY strong!

I went back to basics. I went at the sides of the neck and heel with steam and a blade. I removed even more old glue while being careful not to damage or widen the neck joint (the seam shown in the 3rd picture). I dug as much glue as I could from anywhere I could get to from the exposed areas. The glue coming out was brown and sticky. It even smelled like Hyde glue. Even some of the glue from inside the pocket was brown and I am pretty sure was hyde glue. But something was not right as hyde glue would have given up by now.

Once ready, I once again applied steam into the neck pocket. After about 1 hour of steam, the neck appeared to rock a little front to back. (maybe 1/16” of movement each way). I felt like I could not stop now. It took all this time to get it to move that much, I did not want to have to go back and start all over just to move it 1/16” again. Knowing that it was gonna have to come off one way or another; I started to apply quite a bit of pressure from the neck jig. I would never have considered this much pressure, but something has to give. (I did tell Andy I would get if off…one way or another.) With extreme pressure I was able to raid the heel up about 1/16” toward the top. So now, not only did it rock forward and backwards by 1/16” it also came out of the pocket by that much. Now I feel like I am on a roll. One hour later, I am still only 1/16” out of the damn pocket! Man did I feel defeated!
- Rated: 28 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 2:08 p.m. JackDaniels:

In my final hour: Well, after two hours of steam and muscle, the neck moved 1/16”. I took the neck out of the jig, and started to work it from all angles. I had steam being shot into the pocket, into the heel, into the sides and even under the extension. I could see the movement getting better but it was not letting go. I was worried at this point I was gonna distort the top. At least the jig help the whole thing together. Look at it again…the jig clamps the top and bottom together. So I put it back in the jig and started to rock the neck forward and back; the whole time praying I knew just how much force to use without breaking the neck or the body.

About 3 hours into the night, the neck came up another ¼”. That is huge folks! I could now apply steam underneath the neck joint where I suspected it was still holding on. Within about 10 minutes of that the neck popped right out…as if nothing had ever kept it in place!
- Rated: 47 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 2:12 p.m. Curt:

Nice work!
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Apr 1, 2008 2:16 p.m. JackDaniels:

Here ya go folks: Step right up-step right up! Just like a freak show at the carnival!

In this picture I have already clean up most of the glue. I will talk about that in a minute:

The neck with a mortise and tennon like how the killer Les Paul’s were made in the 50’s. This is a killer neck joint! I will have to get you all the approximate serial number range on this, but for me…this is the period of jet to own. This is a ton better than a dove tail joint in regards to sustain and tone. For a semi-hollow body of this nature, this is what you want! The neck joint is tight left to right and the neck stays straight in the pocket too.

Andy, I decided I am keeping this guitar….nah just kidding!
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 2:24 p.m. JazzBoxJunky:

Wow, wow, wow, now I'm wondering if this joint first appeared on the 6121 Chet's, and maybe on the duo jets later.....I can only imagine how hard it was to get that monster loose from the mortise, good job Joe.
- Rated: 28 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 2:30 p.m. JackDaniels:

So what the hell happend? Well in my opinion, the neck was reset at least once prior. The job was excellent, but the angle was all wrong! Why do half the job…(my dad always says that to me)? The neck joint had a shim on the side that may or may not have been factory, I am guessing not. The neck was glued with very strong white glue like Titebond III. White glue does not break down nearly as well as hyde glue under steam and pressure and Titebond III is the worst. It does break down, but it turns into rubber long before it releases. That was what happened to me. Each night I got it to the point of rubber, but could not get it to the point where it would release. By forcing the neck joint open (while making sure I didn’t break the wood) I was able to get steam into more surfaces of the glue. At one point when it moved up ¼” I had actually stretched the glue. It was still in tact, but looked like taffy being pulled. That was when I was sure it was a re-glue or reset prior. I don’t even know if they had white glue like this in the 50’s, but I know Gretsch did not use any.

BTW: I had done an experiment like this a few days prior to Andy’s guitar arriving. I removed the neck on an old acoustic and re-glued it with Titebond. I remember telling Andy how tough it was to get that neck back off. Yep I glued it on, waited a week and removed it just to see if I could get off a neck that had been Titebond glued. It took an hour longer to get the Titebond neck off than it did the hyde glue joint on the same guitar….and it had only set a week (and not years). Because the old Gretsch 6121 looked like the original joint, I never considered it being re-glued with Titebond or similar. It was near the end of this job, I realized what I was dealing with. Ha Ha live and learn!

While the glue was still rubbery, I cleaned up as much as I could with a chisel, a knife and scraper. The picture above and some of the others I will post tomorrow are also in a cleaned up state. I did not want the glue to harden again while still on the neck.
- Rated: 28 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 2:31 p.m. JackDaniels:

double
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Apr 1, 2008 2:35 p.m. JackDaniels:

Here is a picture of the three holes in the fingerboard. They look a little worse for wear, but once I fill them back in with Rosewood dust and replace the fret, you will not really see them.
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Apr 1, 2008 2:37 p.m. JazzBoxJunky:

Yeah, the more I look at that neck extension, it looks like it is a different profile than normally seen. Telltale signs that someone has been in there. And the titebond glue, another sign. When you posted the first pics, I was wondering how the hell the neckset got that low, I guess the last repair guy, didnt do the math right.
- Rated: 28 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 2:38 p.m. JackDaniels:

That’s about it for now. It will be every few days or so before the next update. I wanted to get the ball rolling with this so far. More will follow on the neck reset and quite a few other little projects Andy wants me to consider on this one.

Cheers everyone!
- Rated: 28 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 2:49 p.m. JackDaniels:

Yeah Jazz-man, see how the fingerboard extension sits on top of the neck tennon almost the whole way? Sort of like a 6120, the neck extension floats in the air a little. But on a 6120, it sites on the deck for about the first inch. This one will too, but it really does not have too. The tennon being that long really supports the end so there is no rise or drop. This is an excellent way to support that extension.

There was a post of an unfinished 1960 6120 from ebay. It has this exact style joint. BTW: The listing from that guitar make it sound like it was never glued together, but in fact that neck was on that guitar at one point in time. It probably had the same bad angle and was removed from the line for more work. Probably a worker snuck it out as is. I see the tell-tail signs of a neck removal on that neck and body too.
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 2:55 p.m. JazzBoxJunky:

Pic of the EBay unfinished 6120 tenon for reference.
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Apr 1, 2008 2:56 p.m. JackDaniels:

The guitar is from 220XX batch from early 1957.

This style neck joint is easy to identify now that I know what to look for. Using a blade or even a piece of paper, slip it under the end of the fingerboard extension from the neck pickup side. It will either slip in about 1.5" up to the 19th or 20th fret, or it will slip way past it. It may not go all the way to the 14th fret on a dovetail, but it should go in much farther than the first inch or so.
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Apr 1, 2008 3:42 p.m. JackDaniels:

yep. That is the one, and that is also how I figured out where to drill on this project. Really the only difference is that this 57 did not have any screw/dowel hole. If you look at the 6120 that came off of, you can see a side screw/dowel did very little for the stability of that joint. The heel screw/dowel was probably the best of those style necks.

Once I get things cleaned up, I will take more pictures of this one too.
- Rated: 25 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 7:47 p.m. 57 Chet :

Wow - Fun stuff Joe!

I haven't had much time to be a very active member here on the GDP lately but, I can't help myself from peeking in, from time to time, to see what's going on...

Well, this thread obviously sparked my interest. To see one of my favorite guitars dissected in such a way is a real thrill...

There was an Andy (hypnofonic) on the old pages, that asked me for pictures of my 6121 when he was having his refinished. I also scanned my pickguard for him to get a repro made. Is this the same guitar? I can't wait to see the finished product.

You are quite the craftsman JackDaniels... I will continue to monitor this fascinating thread...

Thanks for sharing this project with us!

57 Chet