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Any surprises I should know about before diving into this one? I've reset a D-28 style guitar before that turned out well.

Is it normal that the top around the neck joint sinks in like that?

Would the gap around the neck be from wood shrinking over time?

The sunken area is a result of the headblock rotating forward and that is why the neck needs to be reset. This deformation is rather extreme and is probably caused by overheating in a car. I don't think you will have enough heel to do a normal reset. This will be a tough one. You may need to open the body up and try to get the headblock back into the proper position. And this would also require the top depression to be reversed. If you could get the body back into proper shape, you could stabilize it with some carbon rod flying buttresses. Once this is all done a neck reset would probably not even be necessary. But this would be a ton of work. Is the guitar worth it?

Is the fretboard extension a typical jazz guitar type with an added cantilever? Typically there is space between the top and this flying extension but that may not be the case on this model. I ask because it may mean you need to inject steam at a different place to get the neck out efficiently.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Thanks Barry. That depression does seem extreme. Any way to tell before pulling it apart whether or not there is enough heel? I anticipate it is not going to be worth it for the customer. I haven't talked with them yet, the music store I do some work for just asked me to pick the guitar up and look at it.

I'm unsure, it would appear that it is not cantilevered. The wood supporting the fretboard over the body appears to be a uniform thickness (1/4").

Holding the guitar up to light, there is a gap between the fretboard extension, heel, and body, not sure if that tells anything about where to inject steam or not though.

Just going to throw this out there.

For the sake of your own sanity, don't work on it. The only Harmony's really worth sinking your time and effort into are the Sovereigns and other large flat top body styles.

If you saw my thread on rebuilding the old 50's Kay Jumbo I suggest you look at it and take it as a fair warning as what can and usually is involved in repairing these era/type guitars to a playable state.

What will probably happen to this guitar is that you'll work the neck off and then find dozens of other problems. Does the guitar have a truss rod? Or any kind of neck reinforcement? If not then that needs to be added otherwise the relief will *never* be good even if the neck angle is perfect.

If you really want to work on older stuff that doesn't cost much, look for the older large body flat tops (the already mentioned Sovereigns can be great guitars for not alot of scratch) from Kay Harmony and Silvertone. You'll be much happier with the results when you've sunk alot of work into a decent sounding flattop than a honky poorly constructed archtop.

I see the joint in that latest pic where the cantilever is attached. Most times when pulling necks off jazz boxes with these type necks it is best to pull the heel cap and drill a hole at an angle up into the joints headspace to inject steam.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Yup the relief is terrible too. It is advertised as having a steel reinforced neck, but...

It's not a guitar for me personally, as I mentioned the music store I do some work for passed it on to me. I'm just getting my mental ducks in a row before contacting the customer to let them know what will likely be involved.

It's funny, it seems to me that the average guitar owner either thinks everything can/should be fixed or that nothing can. I turned away a bridge re-glue on an old Fender acoustic the other day, the owner was willing to pay up to $400 to have it repaired, but when I actually took the bridge off during inspection (it kind of fell off in my hands when I took the strings off) it turned out that not only was the bridge glued straight to the finish, it had pulled the top layer of "plywood" too which turned out to be a big wood grain sticker!?! hahaha.

It appears there is no heel cap. Do you mind me asking what the reasoning is behind going through the heel of the neck instead of through the 15th fret?

Also are the cantilevered sections usually glued to the top the way a fret board extension is?

This neck is almost ready to come right off, I can move it around quite a bit having done nothing but remove the strings yet.

Steaming from the FB side on these is a problem the head of the joint may or may not be under a fret slot. But even more so the open nature of the joint. The extension is not glued down and in fact is typically not even touching the top. Once you do one you'll see that if you inject steam from the top side it just billows right back out around the FB extensiuon and actually will loosen the extension before it loosens the dovetail. Coming in from the back via the heel will keep the steam working the actual neck joint and do it faster with less chance of delaminating other things like pressed plywood tops as used on lower grade models.

The neck being so loose does not bode well IME. That may very well mean a broken neck block or other issue. I typically quote these as to be billed time & materials with a minimum price, no maximum, with the full minimum paid up front as once it is done you'll never get your end out of it if they stiff you.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Thanks Brian, that's a lot of great stuff to think about. In the absence of a heel cap would you still go through the heel and just fill the hole afterwards?

Why not just add a heel cap once the reset is done? That'll make for a clean result and won't really hurt anything.

Sometimes you can get a small hose under the FB extension and put steam into the open end of the dovetail (with the guitar back up of course). But you do not have room here so yes I would go through the heel. Fill or cover as suggested.

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Thanks for all the input guys. I re-watched my neck re-setting dvd from Dan Erlewine, and the first guitar he works on is a similar old archtop. He got the neck apart dry, so I thought since mine wiggled so much and I could get a palette knife in between the whole perimeter of the joint I'd see if I couldn't tease it apart dry too. Anyway not even 5 minutes later...

Sometimes ya get lucky. I've had the dovetail pop loose on a few, usually from the 30's or thereabouts.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

After getting the joint apart and cleaned up it is now super sloppy. I can rock it side to side a bit and I can pull the neck up creating a 1/16" gap. Pushing the joint together so its tight, my straightedge now sits about an 1/8" short of the top of the saddle on the bridge, and that's with the thumbwheels on the bridge half way so there would be some adjustment. Also the fret board extension is now sitting clear of the top of the guitar and falls away which it wasn't doing before. It seems to me that measurement is what I want, and at this point I should just shim the dovetail so the neck sits tight.

Is it possible that my bad neck angle was mostly due to an original sloppy joint and the glue failing after 50 odd years?