Guild Restoration

Earlier this year, a customer brought in an older Guild D-46 acoustic in need of some attention. Interestingly, these instruments are some of the only production acoustics utilizing primarily Ash wood. Common in classic electric guitars (Telecaster, anyone?) this is a brilliant sounding material but poses two main issues in acoustic guitar construction: it is heavy, and tends to shrink as it ages. The latter quality, combined with some questionable factory work, resulted in the weirdest neck reset ever. See how the neck has pulled cleanly off one side, but remained attached to the other? It ripped the upper bout side clean off the neck block, but remained adhered to the neck heel. It also managed to flake off huge chunks of the finish. Removing the neck cleanly will take a great degree of care. 

The fretboard tongue must first be removed, especially since all the flexing back and forth over the years had broken it right across the 14th fret slot.

Here is the neck tenon after removal. Notice how they cut the tenon a bit small and then padded the area with a sandpaper "shim" that was glued in place. 

Owing again to the Ash construction, every back brace was coming off in one spot or another. I like to take care of these before the neck is reattached. The idea is to firm up the box of the guitar body before even attempting to set the neck at the proper angle. To that end, the side which had ripped free of neck block is also reattached in preparation for the neck set.

Here you can see the neck tenon refined to the proper geometry for the instrument. This is a sensitive process as it dictates the playing action of the instrument assuming a reasonable saddle height. Note the proper wood shims now glued to the side of the tenon.

If I've done this work correctly, just a modest amount of glue should yield squeeze out in a consistent bead around the joint.

Here you can get an idea of the final playing action with a saddle which is neither too high nor too low.

Finally, here is a before and after which also shows the repair to the finish on the neck heel. The guitar is back together and should be enjoyable for years to come!