I'm trying to picture how that much steam was being sent into the neck joint. Where exactly did the water go? Was the guitar continually dripping and being wiped up - it could not all have been absorbed by the wood. Just wondering....
Andy's "57" Chet Atkins 6121 Jet. Watch as it gets repaired.
« » Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12-
- Rated: 12 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 10:19 p.m. nielDa:
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 10:35 p.m. JackDaniels:
57 Chet, yep same guitar. Andy is around here somewhere. I need to see that pickguard scan. I may make a guard for him if I have that. (ANDY?)
Dan, well I tried to get a picture of the steam comming out of the needle. If you look a the picture of the steam tube, you will see that the needle is a tube with the OD of about 3/32" and the IO of about 1/16". When the steam first comes out it sprays about 4" away (think of a tea kettle). As the water gets low, the steam slows down and goes maybe 1" out. That is to say, if I held the needle flat (horizontal) it would flow out straight for a few inches and then rise upward.
Where did all the steam go? Well, a lot soaked into the wood I guess. Some came out and was wiped off. Mostly it built up and flowed under the joint as it opened up.
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 10:40 p.m. JackDaniels:
Next installment:
I plugged the old tuner holes due to Kluson's being installed instead of the original Sta-tites. I used a plug cutter and a block of old mahogany. I was going to use maple to match the headstock, but I doubt you will see them once the new bushings are used. You probably won't see them from the back either but I went ahead and matched the grain anyway.
Here ya go: first drill out the hole to accept the plug.
Next I cut the plugs:
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 10:46 p.m. JackDaniels:
Ok, I fit the plugs in fairly flush to the front of the headstock. They stick out of the back about 1/8".
All glued up, I will let it set for 3-4 hours. Then I take a very sharp chisle and clean them up.
Finally, I drill some piliot holes. Sometimes you can go from the front, other times from the back. The headstock is tappered and made the choice more difficult. I started them all from the front and the top four I drilled all the way thru. The two "E" strings I started in the front, and finished from the back. Once I went all the way thru, I use larger and larger bits. This time I went from the front all the way thru on all of them. Here is about half way thru drill process this wasa the middle size bit. You can see a little chip-out. I will take care of that will some stain and lacquer, but it will be under the bushing anyway.
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 11:00 p.m. JackDaniels:
On to the neck set:
I first cleaned up the neck tennon and the body mortise. I get all the rest of the old glue off. Once clean, I slipped the neck back into the body and check the neck angle. First I tried a 3/32" shim at the front of the pocket. This tilted the neck way back. Like the headstock went back about 2" and the bridge hight went from 9/16" to about 1.25". Whoa! way to much. So I tried a thinner shim..a thin piece of mahogany. It was about 3/64" or a little more than more than 1/32" thick. This tilted the neck up to about 1" at the bridge. We are going to use a bigsby aluminum bridge combo. They are pretty low to begin with and 1" would be too high. Basically, The strings will be about 1/8" above the neck angle at the bridge when strung up. Remember this pic (don't forget that is the inch side of the ruler on the right:
In this picture from the weekend, I could not get the bridge low enough. Even without the wheel nuts, the strings would be about 1/4" off the fretboard. So I need to get the neck tilted up more. I set the bigsby bridge to about what I wanted to have it set with strings on it. I then want the neck angle to be just below that. That is my action.
So I kept working the shim for the height. What I found was I did not need a shim at all. When the othe guy reglued the neck he did not get it all the way down at the heel. So it flattend out the angle. But what sucks is, he adjusted the heel joints to fit the poor angle. So once I had it flat, the neck joints were both open.
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 11:08 p.m. JackDaniels:
So this is where a lot of the skill and craftsmanship comes in. I start by cleaning a trench around the tenon. I am not sure you can see it in this picture, but I used a dremel tool with a very small ball grinder and went around the tenon relieving the inner edge:
I do this to reduce the area that touches the body of the guitar. As I work the angle of the joint now, I will only be sanding on the leading edge of the heel.
I am trying to get the two sides and the heel to close up. Remember the angle changed on the neck, so the part of the heel that used to touch the body has also changed angles. It is now open at the top and closed at the bottom. I remove wood until the joint closes and the neck moves every-so slightly forward. Here it is closed up pretty good:
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 11:20 p.m. JackDaniels:
There are some tricks to get this tight, but the main thing is to take your time. On this particular guitar, the other side of the neck joint is not so lucky. Remember when I said I kept cleaning out brown stuff that looked like hyde glue? Well, I guess it was not glue. It appears to have been wood filler of some sort. The cutway joint is tight at the top and tight at the bottom, but has a gap in the center. I can't close it up too much more without changing the scale and geometry of the neck. So I decided that I will use a mahogany wood filler-strip in the joint to clean it up. This will still be very tight and strong, but might be a little noticeable. I may try to close it up more before I glue if for good, but with a chunk missing on the body side of the joint, I would be causing one problem by trying to fix another.'
Here is the other side with a small filler strip in just the center of the joint. Remember the other side is closed and the neck is already pulled forward.
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 11:27 p.m. JackDaniels:
If you draw a straight line from the heel cap to the end of the binding on the top of the body, you can see that body is missing some wood causing a concave gap at the body line. The neck joint is tight for about 1" and then opens about 1/16" and then closes again. I will stain the mahogany and finish over it when done. It will almost disapear. Right now this is just a mock up before glueing.
I my try one more shot at getting it more closed, but as you can see the body the problem. It is no longer 90 degrees to the back, which it is on the otherside. To close this gap all the way, I would need to relieve the other side and the heel another 1/16 and pull the neck forward some more.
Unfortunately, it was probably like this from the first reset and was just wood-filler to hide it.
JD
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 11:34 p.m. JackDaniels:
Ok, and the money shot with the Bigsby behind the black bridge base that is currently glued to the top:
The bigsby bridge will move forward about 3/4" so it will raise the white bar a little. That is the action. Notice I set the wheel-nuts so it is almost where I want it to be, but so that it still have movement up and down on the base. Once the bridge is in place, the white bar will hit is about 3/32" below the top of the bridge as it sets. This means that the strings will cross over the bridge and go toward the nut about 3/32" above the finger board. I can raise it about another 1/16" or more on the bridge wheels if needed. The bigsby bridge is a low bridge, but I want to set the neck to the high side of its adjustments. If we had to use a differnt bridge like a bar bridge and a standard wood base, the neck would be set too low for that. So I set the neck to accomidate the bigsby, but so that it can still use a stock wood base and bar bridge if needed.
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 11:39 p.m. JackDaniels:
btw: the hight of the neck went from 9/16" at the bridge to about 7/8" at the bridge.
-
- Rated: 30 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 11:46 p.m. JazzBoxJunky:
Coming along nicely there.... Joe, do you think it's possible that this was once a dovetail joint, and someone glued a block over the dovetail to make it into a tenon? Just a thought, maybe the grain lines will show that it's the same piece, or an added piece.
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 11:52 p.m. JackDaniels:
You can see in the above picture the piece of binding that was replaced. It was the wrong thickness and does not blend in. I will attempt to replaced that section with the correct style and age it to blend in. That will be over the weekend.
For now, I may try to resolve that neck joint issue on the cutway side. I may add the strip of wood to the body itself and sand it clean. That will close up the joint. Yep, that's what I think I will do: Add wood to the body where it is missing. Then the neck joint will close tight.
JD
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 1, 2008 11:57 p.m. JackDaniels:
Man Jazz, I wish it was true, but it looks like this is a factory tennon. I can not see any signs of anything else...unless it was a reneck? The neck is definitly a Gretsch, but could it be from a later year? We have seen that before, but usally the neck joint stays the same.
Hmm...I may look at that again. Maybe it was a dovetail that was renecked at the factory. If that was the case, they could have cut a new mortise for it I guess. It does not really look like that, but maybe...?
The thing is, in the past when we see a Gretsch re-neck, the used the more modern fingerboard etc. This one is the original hump markers. So I think maybe it is original to the guitar.
JD
-
- Rated: 96 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 12:02 a.m. Setzer:
JackDaniels said: 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.
A photo of my '57 with a cloth under the ext. Thanks so much for sharing with us Joe! Great to see this done on a 50's Jet.
-
- Rated: 29 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 12:10 a.m. JackDaniels:
Paul, yep that looks the same.
-
- Rated: 4 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 9:41 a.m. hypnofonic:
that is awesome joe, great job!!
yes, 57chet is correct, this is the 6121 i was emailing him about.. i drool all over the pics of his 57 every now and then and it has become my reference guitar.
i still need a pickguard. i do have a correct repro jet sized etched signpost guard from randy klimpert but if anyone has a real 6121 guard just sitting around doing nothing (yea rite..), then i would love to get a real one on there.
i could never do what joe is doing, like i've told him, i would be freaking out the entire time.. just sitting back and reading the posts and seeing the pics is much more fun!!
-
- Rated: 2 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 11:39 a.m. DaleFortune:
I'm a newbie here so I wanted to say it's nice to see this kind of work being done by others. Jack your shop looks a lot like mine.
-
- Rated: 2 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 11:41 a.m. DaleFortune:
Bad Bettie Page...
-
- Rated: 4 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 12:01 p.m. candyapplegrey:
is that your guitar dale?
-
- Rated: 2 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 12:05 p.m. DaleFortune:
This post has been deleted
-
- Rated: 2 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 12:08 p.m. DaleFortune:
This post has been deleted
-
- Rated: 2 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 12:29 p.m. DaleFortune:
3 tries later...This is a late 50s Country Club model. I did this for a fellow in New York, quite the RockaBilly guitar. I also did a matching Epiphone Amp with the Bad Bettie art work.
-
- Rated: 13 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 2:44 p.m. riz:
JD, 7/8" at the bridge is the average of my three jets with good action. I think you're right on there. My '57 is ever so slightly higher...
-
- Rated: 13 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 2:51 p.m. riz:
Actually, it's 7/8" to the bottom of the strings at the bridge, sorry.
-
- Rated: 39 ↑
Apr 2, 2008 3:40 p.m. JBGretschguy:
Dale!! It's great to see you here! I am also on the BGC!
