DIY Waterboarding - or Fixing Guitar Necks

Two Broken Necks - Not So Much
A Raspberry Ripple as Evel Knievel

Well, the holibobs are on, so Jookyness will be limited in scope and stunted in activity, but it doesn't stop me trying.

For instance, in between serving 9 kinds of breakfast and planning culturally important and absorbing visits to museums, galleries, famous personages' birth places and sweet shops, I decided to undo the clamps on The Raspberry Ripple One and see how the neck-gluing-back-on went.

Oh, and the new Argos catalogue is out, so that was a bit of a trip too.

And first impressions are good. I had to remove a little sliver of wood, so I will have to do a bit of work there, but on the whole it looks solid and I was quite pleased.

In fact I had it going on in my head..

1. Sand the neck back
2. Fill the gap with some wood filler
3. Let it dry
4. Sand it smooth
5. Redecorate.
6. Sorted.

And it was all going well, up there in me bonce, until, that was I noticed that one of the clamps had somehow come off the bit of wood I'd used to protect the fretboard and left a lovely circular indent in the rosewood. A couple or three mm deep. Not happy. Not happy at all.

Oh how I laughed.

Maniacally.

I mean it will still be playable, but not exactly the professional look I envisaged.

So searching deep in my splintered memory, I thought I'd try something I saw my Granddad do once to get a dent out of the kitchen table, and try to 'lift' the dent using a sopping wet rag and a very hot iron.

Now I haven't tried this before, but what the hell, how bad can it get?

(As I type that I'm trying to remember whether the linseed oil I put on the 'board is flammable or not.)

So, if an iron is good, I figured a soldering iron would be better and as it was super-heated, body armour affixed and an old T Towel suitably wet, I gave it a go...

What I did was soak the T towel, and leave it on top of the 'board for half an hour. I figured it made sense to have water in there to swell the fibres or something. Don't know if that is true, but what the hell.

I had already wire-wooled it to try and remove or at least break-up the oil. Not sure if that actually helps either to be honest, as thinking about it, where I am trying to fix has already been 'broken'. But again, whatever.

Anyway once the water had a chance to soak in, I re-soaked the towel, placed it over my circular divot and then pressed down gently, almost lay on the verily hot soldering iron.

Cue clouds of steam and a satisfying sizzle.

Anyway, I repeated the soak and sizzle for fifteen minutes before I got bored, then I stopped.

As for the result, well originally it was a good couple of mm deep, but now it feels flat to the touch, which is quite a turn-around. There is still a semi-circular mark on the 'board which doesn't want to shift, but that is OK, you can't really notice it unless you are looking and I'll claim it as a PRS moon thing, so that is cool.

Finally then, I gave it another go with some wirewool and after it had dried I re-oiled it, and problem solved methinks.

Lovely.

Now that that was out of the way, I got on with my sanding-filling-finishing of the back of the neck.

And as I forgot to post this earlier, I got on with it quite well, as it happens and as you can probably see it is all done bar the drying and looks rather nice indeed. It is covered in lacquer, so I'll leave it until tomorrow to put some strings on and see if a flying headstock removes an eye or breaks a nose...

La la laaa

Jookies can now come with, err, Moons

A bit of Tea Towel Waterboarding

And There It Was Gone