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Got a Martin glued M &T neck coming in which may need a neck reset.
What's the procedure?
Steam/heat off after removing the bolt and FB extension as per dovetail?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

They have a bolt that is there and used to keep things in place until the glue dries. What often results is the wood the bolt registers against compresses and some wiggle room emerges and the glue joint, in shear gives way and the bolt is the only thing keeping the neck heel on the rim.

So remove the wooden plate on the neck block and if you do it with care sometimes you can preserve the self stick. I use a pallet knife and take my time, it is possible if you pry too hard to snap a plate in half so be careful.

But before you take the strings off observe the heel on the rim under string tension. If there is any kind of a visual gap of the heel against the rim all that is necessary is to remove the plate and tighten the bolt. The joint will still not be glued but the design is not conducive to staying glued.

So on say a set-up I always look for this gap and if present I remove the plate, snug the bolt, close the gap, return the plate often with new self stick and then do the set-up with the restored neck angle from eliminating that gap. This is OFTEN the reason the action rises on these models.

If you are compelled to do an actual full on neck reset and if it needs it meaning that the neck angle is poor with the gap closed and the bolt snugged then its:

Remove the fret board extension with heat, time, patience, skill and pallet knives.

Restore the neck angle by flossing the cheeks (chisel is faster then floss to refine).

Reglue the extension and tenon and snug up the bolt though it's debatable that we glue this joint at all.... but we do because perhaps the wood compression is over or slowed and the shear forces won't be as great.

We've done full on neck resets on lots of these but most of the time they just need the plate removed and the bolt snugged.

Why no new glue if just snugging the bolt? Poor access that's why because the extension is still glued if not doing a full on reset. It's a poor design admittedly and the glue joint being in constant shear was something that was not a good design.

Conversion to a bolt-on, extra bolt, butt joint, etc are all possibilities but not necessary and you kill the warranty if you do these things.

These were also not very expensive Martins making the economics of full on neck resets perhaps an issue for the steward.

Good luck.

Thanks Hesh, you da man!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

also... you can change the neck angle w/o removing the fboard tongue too. see frank fords original taylor neck reset tutorial. the same can be done with these model martins.