Customer Repair - 1968 Guild F112

DAY 1 – The first thing to do is remove the neck, starting with loosening the fretboard, removing the 15th fret, drilling the steam holes, and loosening the neck with steam. Loosening the fretboard wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as hard as a vintage Yamaha. I had already noticed there was 1 steam hole in the center at the 15th fret. After removing the fret I put my drill in the hole and found it was never plugged. There’s no reason to drill any more holes. Then I put the guitar in the neck jig, which was a bit difficult because of the very heavy headstock, the guitar kept wanting to tip forward as I tried to position it in the jig. 2 minutes of steam and the neck is off!! After 30 seconds I noticed a lot of steam escaping at the bottom sides of the neck, causing lots of finish blushing, so I started wiggling the neck. It was slightly loose, and continued to loosen. I turned the steam off at 2 minutes and wiggled the neck out in a few seconds. They only used yellow glue and not a lot of it. The original neck installation must have had very little glue too, the joint and face of the heel/side of the guitar are very clean.

Heating the fretboard extension.


Loosening the fretboard extension.




Wetting the 15th fret area to reduce the chances of chipping.


The fret removed!


A single steam hole!


The setup.


A towel is stuffed the guitar to protect the wood in case of internal steam leakage.



Lots of finish blushing on the body (none on the neck) because of massive leakage at the bottom of the joint.  Not a lot of glue in the joint, and pretty much NONE on the side of the guitar!














I've learned dentured alcohol takes the finish blushing right out, but it softens the finish, so I have to use it lightly. It looks much better afterward. I'll leave it to dry and polish at a later date.





I noticed one really odd thing! Even though it looks like the neck has been off, it doesn't look like anything has even been done to the heel! It looks factory fresh! No signs any material has been taken off for a neck reset??






Overall, it was one of the easier neck removals. And I suspect the original removal wasn't too bad either, since they only drilled 1 hole in the center. Now just let it dry out for a day or 2.

DAY 3 – Made the saddle (.094”/.095” thick x 4” long, 14" radius), sanded .15" off the bottom. It sticks out .19"/.27"/.22" (the bridge tapers .24" to .20" thick). Too high.

The first install of the saddle.  Too high.

DAY 5 – Undercut the heel. Put tape on the body next to the heel area. The neck projects .06" below the top of the bridge, and is about 1/16" off center (take off the bass side). Set the tape on the heel at .04", filed & sanded almost to the tape and found the heel wouldn't sit flat. Measured the thickness of the dovetail & the neck pocket to find the end of the dovetail is hitting the back of the pocket. Sanded a 3/32" triangle off the back of the dovetail. Finished sanding to the tape. The neck now projects .04" above the top of the bridge and is still 1/16" off center (take off the bass side). Sanded about .015" off the whole bass side of the heel, the neck is now centered. Set the tape on the heel at .015", filed & sanded to the tape. The neck projects .08" above the top of the bridge and is centered.

Undercut the heel.






Put tape on the body next to the heel area.


Set the tape on heel at .06".


File to the tape.


Marked a 3/32" triangle on the side of the dovetail.




Sanded to the line.




First round of heel sanding.






The old strings will go back on tomorrow and see where the neck projection and action are.

DAY 7 – Received the oversize bridge pins to find they are OVER-oversize!! .256”/.258” diameter at the top vs. the .235” they claimed. I sent Stew Mac a nastygram, also mentioning the other oversize pins I bought in October that were also the same size. They have a serious quality issue. Since they seem to be the only source of these oversize pins, ALL of their oversize pins must be made in the same mold, with different materials, so they must ALL be oversize.  There's NO WAY I'm going to open the holes that much!

DAY 9 – I measured the bottom of the existing bridge pin holes with gage pins, finding most are about .200” diameter. I reamed one hole to fit the plug flush to the top and measured the bottom of the hole at about .225” diameter.  The existing holes are on an angle so I followed the same angle in an attempt to get the top of the holes to clean up, but that didn't always work.  So the front edge of the plugs sit higher than the rear edge, but my goal was to get the front edge flush. Then I marked the bottom of the shaft all around with a razor blade, cut the plug off & sanded it close to the line, and hand sanded to get it very close to flush on the inside. I made a sketch of the bridge, numbering the holes and numbered every pin. And finally glued them in with fish glue.

The bridge sketch.


It's hard to see the line make by the razor blade.


The line highlighted with pencil.


Cut off and sanded.


First pin fit!


Adding the glue for pin 7.


All in!!!




The tools.

DAY 11 – I put the guitar in the neck jig and strung it up with the old strings, tuned Open G (DGDGBD). Before I removed the strings I had taped all the strings together near the bridge so they would stay in order, the first fun part was releasing them (cut the tape), then untangling them one at a time, then attaching them to the tuners. These funky locking tuners are a pain for putting old strings back on! My old eyes can't see the holes to line them up, so I take my glasses off, then I can't see the bridge to put the end in the hole, put them back on, sometimes the string pops out of the tuner (the thin ones), it took 4 tries to get the octave G to finally stay!!! Probably 1 hour! The neck relief is good. The action is 1/8” both D’s. The saddle sticks out .15” both D’s and .21” in the middle. The neck is centered.

I found in an earlier email he said he'd like it set up in Open C (CGCGCE), so I sent an email to confirm, which he did.  I'll do that tomorrow and hopefully finalize the neck angle.