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I've been helping a friend build a dread, and it is nearly finished. He started slotting the nut last night, and something looked off to me. Sure enough, a straightedge down the fretboard lines up about 1/8" DOWN from the top surface of the bridge.   AGGGHHH!

The most frustrating thing is that we measured this over and over when we fit the neck, and over and over again when we glued the neck in. I cannot imagine what went wrong. I'm not a long-time veteran yet, but I have built enough to know how to get this right.

He wasn't worried about it, as he has made plenty of mistakes on this guitar along the way and has learned that, with my help, we can fix pretty much anything. So that's good.

I explained to him that the two ways to fix this are (1) reset the neck, and (2) thinning the bridge. The bridge is rift-sawn cocobolo, so it'll be strong, but the bridge would end up being about .200".

If it were mine, or if I were selling it, I would re-set the neck, and I told him that's the proper way to fix it. But I was also honest about the fact that thinning the bridge is easier if it works, and if it doesn't work, we end up resetting the neck anyway. (We would have the added task of putting on a new bridge, which is some additional work but not a huge amount.)

He wants to try thinning the bridge. Should I try to talk him out of it?

Third is to build a thick fb...naaaaaaaa I don't like that. I would reset the neck

I would reset the neck. It is a good skill for him to learn.

Brock Poling38658.7357060185

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

To answer your question: Yup! Talk him out of it and fix it right.

OK, at the risk of losing the respect of my peers here, I'm going to ask some questions, to which I will respond with a possibly way-out answer.

1. Is the neck joint/fretboard at a 180 degree relationship to the top, or is it set back at a negative angle? For that matter, is it set forward of the top?

2. How thick is the fretboard?

3. How thick is the bridge, and is it already glued on?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Thanks for your responses, guys!

For all that suggested a re-set, it will probably be persuasive to him to know that I asked here and that everyone (except Don) immediately said to do the re-set.

Don, The neck joint/fretboard is set back at a negative angle, but somehow we didn't get the angle steep enough. The fretboard is 1/4" thick, except it was sanded thinner in the extension area to fit cleanly on the soundboard (probably wouldn't have happened if we had it at the correct angle). The bridge is already glued on, and it is a hair under 3/8" thick.

I may be way off base here, but has the relative humidity in your shop risen dramatically lately???
Dan'l

Re-set.
The frets are already in, right?
Don Williams38659.3045486111

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

take a step back and reset the neck.

it is under set so, it will be so much easier to continue fitting and get it right.

thinning a bridge is a hack solution at best, that is why we are replacing cracked bridges all the time.

Matt

What kind of neck to body joint does this guitar have?

i am with the majority, reset the neck. if you don't you will know it is a bad job, and the thing will need to be reset that much sooner.

[QUOTE=Kelby]The fretboard is 1/4" thick, except it was sanded thinner in
the extension area to fit cleanly on the soundboard (probably wouldn't have
happened if we had it at the correct angle). The bridge is already glued on,
and it is a hair under 3/8" thick.[/QUOTE]

Like everybody I would say convince your friend to reset the neck. It sounds
like you set the neck angle right but the top is very flexible and probably
rises with string tension.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Thanks, guys!

The frets are already in, but we haven't put strings on.

It is very possible that a humidity change caused this. Maybe we'll give it a week or so to see if things settle back down before we start ripping the neck off. But I'll try to prepare him for the idea that the neck should be reset.