I've recently found an old bowl back mandolin that is in serious need of repairs. Most importantly, the neck has a pretty aggressive bow in it. The action on the 12th fret is 6mm, the nut is barely 1.5mm high and the bridge measures 7mm in height across the middle. Without a bridge altogether (running a ruler from the spot where the bridge sits to the nut) the action would still be about 3mm. To add to this, it seems someone attempted to repair the instrument at some point. My guess is the neck suffered a crack where it joins the body, coincidentally, where the belly of the bow is most pronounced. I imagine I have a few options here:
A. Carefully undo the sloppy neck job (maybe using a heat source to free the glue), clean up the mess, and apply a new neck fix that also corrects the action. I am unsure of the type of glue used, maybe someone here can tell what it is
B. Remove the fingerboard completely, slowly remove material from the glue side to correct for the action, cut deeper slots in the nut thus reducing the overall thickness of the neck
C. Build a jig to hold it in place as I apply heat to the entire neck and proceed to clamp it down
I am not a professional luthier (as you can probably tell), and own a small collection of hand tools (nothing sophisticated). I'm not opposed to purchasing tools for the job, within reason. Here's a picture of the mandolin
Thank you in advance! (apologies for the bad photography skills)
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