Comment

Comment by Michael Fred Johnson on April 15, 2012 at 12:52am

Would be a shame to loose the fiddle front.Reduce the depth of the body at the tail end tapering towards the neck. Using a razor plane /block plane and finish flat by rubbing on abrasive paper glued to a board.

Or if you can remove the fingerboard either insert a tapered piece of wood to get the angle or plane a taper towards the nut

Comment by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 14, 2012 at 11:58pm

Another thought: you could try cutting down along the joint with an extremely hot wire...

Comment by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 14, 2012 at 11:55pm

St Ginger,

Ahhh. Didn't know your block went all the way through. In that case, yes, James' idea to shim the tail end seems best. Araldite can be somewhat softened with commercial paint stripper or acetone (let it fully cure for 20-30 minutes!), then spot application of heat from a good blow dryer. Should get it loosened enough to pull the pieces apart for cleanup. There are other products that require a lab and a fume hood, such as dimethylformamide. When you reglue, use a decent wood glue, not epoxy resin.

Comment by St Ginger on April 14, 2012 at 11:17pm

thanks for all your advice guys, i really appreciate it. 

Oily, your idea of cutting the neck is probably the simplest, but the internal shape of the strut would mean there is little or no surface area to screw into: 

I don't think that is going to work. the two bet options i can think of are to re-seat the strut or to make a new top. i like James' idea of a shim at the tail end to push the angle back, and also sand down the neck end of the strut to make the angle bigger.

I idea I slept on it last night and am liking the idea of a flat top more and more. It would give it a much more guitar like feel, but still look like  violin, so it could be a good combination. a bit like a boat back acoustic. i mostly don't want to have to wait to find fresh timber, not to mention waste all the work i put into forming the saddle. 

Either way i think it would be best to re-seat the neck anyway, even if i add a new top. The problem is that it is stuck in with araldite, which is a uk brand name for two part epoxy resin. amazing for sticking anything to anything, but a pig to get off. its resistant to solvents and paint strippers and tends to take the material with it if you cut it. 

does anyone know how to remove araldite? it will be a while before i can get new top wood, so i am going to explore all the other options as well. 

Comment by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 14, 2012 at 6:51pm

Oops, sorry, I drew that wrong; you wanna remove wood the other way, so that your neck angles up, not down. But the idea could still work, and save you a lot of time.

Comment by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 14, 2012 at 6:46pm

Ginger,

Randy's comment gave me another idea: cut the neck off flush to the body at the heel, and at the top block. Leave the glued in remaining piece of neck as a block. Trim the body side edge of the heel, and the top side edge, so as to form th angle you need. Then, turn it into a bolt on, with two screws from the inside; set one above the other, like so:

 

Comment by Ron "Oily" Sprague on April 14, 2012 at 5:57pm

Ginger,

 

Lots of choices, most of which I suspect you've already identified, and few of which you'll prefer. Reduce your bridge height significantly. There are commercial jazzbox archtop builds with pretty low bridges and trapeze tailpieces, but I can see you probably won't get much break angle over the bridge. I'd try this first, however, because you might get a pleasant surprise, and it's the absolute easiest thing for you to do at this point. Or, suck it up and reset your neck, wedge shimming it so it has about a 3 - 4 degree back angle (I personally think this is your least worst option if you want to retain everything else including your higher bridge, even though its a pain to try to de-glue the neck). Or, scrape your top flatter (relatively easy, but will remove a lot of the belly you wanted in the design). Or, put in a flat top (Easiest, but then you got a flat "stomach!" ;-) ). Or, de-glue your fretboard, shave the top of the neck down at the proper angle angle, and reglue the fretboard (lots more work than de-gluing the entire neck from the neck pocket).Or, rip out all your frets, plane off the old fretboard, shave the top of the neck at the proper angle, layer a new fretboard on top of the old one, then refret it (The most work, and IMHO, the most difficult / time-consuming).

 

Shame. It looks a lovely build otherwise. We live and we learn, sometimes the hard way. 

Comment by Randy S. Bretz on April 14, 2012 at 5:47pm

Looks like you might have to cut the heel too

Comment by Randy S. Bretz on April 14, 2012 at 5:45pm

I cut the block with a slight angle to it so the neck sits at the correct pitch...you  could do the same where the neck lays on the box in front

Comment by James on April 14, 2012 at 4:36pm

wedge shim?

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