Bolt on neck method

[Jim Baker]

Steve, I didn't end up glueing the extension down. I strung it up and played it for a couple months and then decided to finish it. I'm still working on that.
As for the bolt on neck, it works fine. I plan to leave the neck unglued so that I can possibly interchange it at some point if I wish.

My biggest mistake with the neck was using carbon fibre as a stiffener. I ended up taking it apart and adding 1/8" steel bar on eithe side. It added a lot of mass.

Next time I will try a truss rod.

[Vladimir Seleznev]

So do Collings, Huss&Dalton, Taylor, myself, as well as many, many other mid to high end guitar builders. In fact, I'd venture that there are more bolt on necks on mid to hjgh end guitars these days than dovetails. There's no tone or power penalty(I built a year's worth of guitars with dovetailed necks some time back to see if they're be better or worse than those previous and those after, and there was no perceptible difference at all, not when new, not today), but there's a definite advantage when it comes time to repair or adjust. We can reset a neck in minutes without risking damage with heat and steam, even on those that still glue the fretboard down to the top(myself, Collings, etc..). Mandolins don't need neck resets nearly as soon or as often, if at all, as guitars, due to their stiffer build(smaller spans, shorter ribs/sides), and the adjustable bridge allows a lot of adjustment room, so the advantage here is more or less moot. I can't think of a disadvantage, though, other than buyer resistance(which we've finally overcome with guitars).

A little side note: on a guitar, bolt on necks actually take more time to build and install than a dovetail neck, especially in a factory setting. You'll not find a bolt on neck on any inexpensive Asian guitar for this reason.

Despite discussion is over I would like to disagree that glueing is cheaper. I depends on many factors... in Russia, f.e. guitar with traditional (since 19th century) Russian-7string-guitar one-bolt joint (it is like Key joint shown several posts earlier) significantly cheaper than any asian guitar. Mainly because setup of one-bolt joint is a problem of a customer