Loose Neck Joint & Bridge Fit :: 1960's Aria Barney Kessel [5.7 lbs]

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Loose Neck Joint & Bridge Fit :: 1960's Aria Barney Kessel [5.7 lbs]

The bridge foot needed to be refit along with a loose neck block re-glued to the top.  The neck pickup was also freaking out, causing feedback and out-of-phase output issues.  I found that the metal cover was split and there was a small section that was vibrating and inducing signal into the pickup.  To fix this I ended up lightly hot gluing the broken cover to keep it in place.  A bone new nut finished off the setup.

Loose Neck Block :: 1960's Aria Barney Kessel

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Loose Neck Block :: 1960's Aria Barney Kessel

The top is separated from the neck block and not providing much strength for the bolt on neck joint. Here I'm clamping the neck back to realign the top while gluing and clamping the loose area.  The neck block had slipped so much that there was a significant stack of shims in the neck pocket to account for the fallen neck angle.

The bridge is also being refit on this hollowbody.

1983 Ibanez AM-255 Artist :: reglue top to center block

1983 Ibanez AM-255 Artist :: reglue top to center block.

This was just in the shop recently for finish repairs, inlay and setup.  The owner decided to swap out the neck pickup when he got it back.  While having the guitar gutted, he noticed that there was a large gap between the top and the center block around the neck pickup that extended to the bridge pickup.

He brought the guitar back to have the gap checked out.  I used epoxy for it’s strength, open working time and gap-filling properties.  The entire top was masked off to prevent any epoxy from making a mess of the finish.  Also worth noting is that I plugged the pickup ring screw holes to prevent hydraulic pressure from forcing the epoxy up and onto the top.

This was a first for me.  I will be pulling the pickups on all semi-hollow guitars that come across my bench to check for this in the future!