Using the following link,
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Dec/Removing_a_1952_Goldtop_Les_Pauls_Neck.aspx
I attempted to mimic this process (same for both LP and 335). As I mentioned before, long tenon neck removal like this is difficult. There is a lot of surface area of glue to soften. I began... thusly.... :
Remove a number of frets at different intervals along the tenon.
Drill 3/32" holes along the fret slots and in pickup recess.
Apply heat and add boiling water to the area. Adding the boiling water with a syringe and removing it wicks away some of the hide glue in the joint.
Then this happened. After two solid days of adding boiling water and removing it (hundreds of times), I decided to try and steam the joint. Using my trusty pressure cooker steamer, I attempted to get the neck off. Unfortunately, I don't know how to properly make steam and the hose just sputtered hot water into the holes. After all this fuss, the wood near the neck mortise swelled and pushed up the end of the fret board. I took this opportunity to remove this part of the fret board to gain direct access to the neck joint.
I went crazy with the drill and added more holes.
At this point in time, I assumed the guitar was no better than firewood. I was in shambles and on a downward spiral to a dark and suffering depression. I let the neck sit as it is for 2 days to allow the wood to dry and shrink again. I began applying light heat for 3 hours, followed by a bigger bulb and more heat. I took the guitar to the steamer again, and ramped the stovetop up to 6/10 (crazy medium/high shit). The output of the basketball needle was a supremely hot jet, rid of sputtering. At this point, the heat/moisture ratio was better balanced, and I let the joint cook. I took about 30 seconds to each drill hole, cycled through 2-3 times, and I began to see movement. This opened up more gaps in the joint and the steam penetrated more deeply than before. After applying a terrifying amount of manual pressure on the neck, towards the front of the guitar, the body was finally rid of its blessed neck.
Any professional seeing this probably threw up in something.
I used the steamer to blast away any glue leftover. Below is my steaming setup.
Pressure cooker, vinyl hose, heat-insulating dirty sock, basketball pump needle, pile of scrap wood.
Observations:
-The lamp heat, steam, and moisture caused some Titebond glue near the joint to soften. Some of the laminations separated about 1/64". I am not concerned. The glue is still there, so I plan of reheating the area and clamping the wood back into place. The existing Titebond should hold everything .
-The lacquer damage was moderate. The whole finish will be stripped.
-The swelling wood also broke away some of the binding. I've never been pleased with my binding work. As nobody probably remembers, I used 0.090" cream binding instead of 0.060" like I should have. This required a lot of scraping, resulting in a very uneven thickness throughout. Since it is coming off fairly easily, I plan to remove all the body's binding (not the neck's), and replace it with the proper size. This should really make the body look much nicer.
-The removal of the bottom few frets actually makes the neck angle fix much easier. I can shimmy a strip of sandpaper completely through the neck/body contact to sand the neck flush. Further updates will illustrate this.
-The detached fret board portion also requires me to re-radius the board, and, of course, re-fret it.
-Drink plenty of water while dealing with steam and heat lamps n such. I sweat like a pig in the middle of Juuuu-ly. Yes sir.
Next step:
Let the wood dry completely. Heat the creeping glue areas and clamp to original position. Afterwards, the tenon and mortise will need re-squared and possibly shimmed for a better fit (chisel and router work). Afterwards, I can properly shim the neck angle.
-Andrew
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