Q I really appreciated Rick Turner's article on neck resets in the November 1997 issue, but it didn't help my particular problem-resetting the neck of a classical. I'm afraid that I will have to replace the fingerboard or shim it, but I am hoping that something less drastic will work.
William Cloud Hicklin
Danville, Virginia
A Resetting necks with Spanish heels is difficult at best. There are several ways you can go. The first is to remove the fingerboard and then glue a shim tapering from 0 inches at the nut end to 3/32 inches or so at the body end in between the neck/top and the replaced fingerboard. This will slightly increase the thickness of the neck the higher up you play, but it can fix your action problem. Another option is to remove the frets, taper your existing fingerboard thinner at the nut end, and refret. You then get a thinner (and perhaps weaker) neck at the nut end, while the neck thickness stays about the same up around the tenth fret. The third option, sometimes called "slipping the heel," is to peel back the binding and purfling around the sides from the heel to approximately the widest point of the upper bout and then carefully separate the back from the kerfing and inner section of the neck's heel block (not easy on a slipper-heel Spanish guitar!). Then reglue the back so that the neck is forced back to a greater angle, recut and reattach the binding and purfling, and touch up the finish. It's a lot of finicky work, and you should not try this at home on your Hauser!
Frank Ford of Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, California, has devised another solution, but it isn't widely used. Using a surgeon's bone saw with a blade that's only .010 inch thick, Ford cuts the neck off right at the body. He then recuts the angle and reattaches the neck with two bolts-similar to the system used by Taylor, Collings, Bourgeois, and many other modern steel-string guitar builders. Pictures of this process can be seen on Ford's Web site at www. frets.com.
Any of these options is going to cost a minimum of $200, so the job might not be worth the money unless the guitar has some value. Which solution you choose depends on how good your guitar is, your budget, and how much you really need the action to go down. If it's a really cheap guitar, then a quick and dirty back slip (option no. 3) might be best, with no cosmetic detailing. (Cosmetic work-finish touch-up and the like-can easily take more time than the structural work.) The lowest budget approach is probably taking out the frets, planing the fingerboard, and refretting-though even that isn't cheap. Ford's system is really the best job you can get and should probably be reserved for medium- to high-value guitars. That approach and slipping the back give the greatest latitude for lowering the action.
-Rick Turner
Q Where can I get the silk-and-steel strings that are reportedly used on Django-style guitars?
Dallas Selman
Vancouver, Canada
A Although they're somewhat hard to find in the U.S., the French-made Argentine strings that you are referring to are available through the Guitar Express, 21012 W. Liberty Rd., White Hall, MD 21161; (410) 357-4078; fax (410) 357-8068.
-Teja Gerken
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