Neck Reset on a 1973 Mossman:

First of all, I want to thank Scott Baxendale. I have done many neck resets, but never before on a Mossman, so I called Scott. He was very helpful, sending me some photos he had taken on his own Mossman neck resets. As a former employee of the Mossman Guitar Company (and for a few years, the owner of the company), he certainly has the knowledge of the neck joint, and how to best perform this job.

Here is a photo of the patient...serial number 73-366. It needs the neck reset, but as I found out, it needed a little more than that....

First, we need to take off the neck. I'll use a small heat blanket, and hold it down with a wood block, while gently pushing a sharp spatula into the glue joint...

 

Here's the fingerboard overhang, unglued from the top of the gutiar--the spatula is holding the fingerboard up--so it won't reglue

 

Next, we remove the 15th fret. I'm using a soldering iron to heat any glue that might be in the fret slot, and a set of fret nippers to lift the fret out. I'm trying to be extra careful with the fret...it may be useable again.

 

Here's where this job starts to differ from other neck resets...On the Mossman, the neck is bolted on using a mortise and tenon joint--but it is also glued, and the tenon extends all the way to the back of the guiar. I'll have to drill a hole down the tenon as far as possible--but not too far...The middle photo shows holding the drill at a very uncomfortable angle...so on the right, I'm standing on a foot stool--good leverage for this job...

 

Here are the holes---and a sketch (as described by Scott) of where the tenon should be.

 

Here is my neck steaming setup. On the left is the capuccino maker and hot plate--with a tube into a juice jar--the steam trap--then into a basketball nozzle, and down into the neck joint.

 

After just a few minutes, the neck lifts right out.

 

Now, I need to use a small saw to cut a hole above the soundhole. The Mossman uses a special headblock--with long feet that need to be cut off (Scott calls this repair "the agony of de feet"). In the photo on the right, I'm trying to show the feet through a mirror. The issue is, that on the Mossman, the upper face braces are too small, and don't give adequate support for the neck under string tension. We'll saw off the feet, and make a new upper face brace.

 

After sawing the feet, I'm using a thin chisel to knock off the remaining mahogany slivers.

 

Here's the new upper face brace, ready to glue in.

 

The brace is glued in, and is under clamp pressure.

 

Now, it's time to change the neck angle. I'll take the first pass using a chisel.

 

Now, cleaning the chisel marks using sandpaper.

 

Now, we run into our first obstacle....After speaking with Scott, it is recommended to replace the hex nut that came on the truss rod with a Fender bullet truss rod nut. The only problem is....it's the wrong thread for this instrument. Obviously, the Mossman's that Scott has worked on use a 10-32 thread, but this one is a 10-24, and I can't find a bullet truss rod nut with a 10-24 thread. After searching the web (and waiting a few days for shipment), I found an allen nut with a 10-24 thread, and it is pictured on the right. Even though it is much shorter than the bullet nut, it works just fine.

So...it's time to cut the old truss rod, and put on the new nut. I left a couple of extra washers for spacers...

 

Now, we have another set of issues...the photo below shows the nut, taken off--and two problems can be seen. First, it is shimmed with a piece of cardboard, which can't be good for the tone of the instrument. Second, the first and sixth string slots are very offset. The high e is within about 1/16th of an inch from the edge of the fingerboard, and the low e is about 3/16ths from the edge. We need to clean out the nut slot, and make a new nut.

 

However, this won't solve the entire problem by itself. The string pegs in the bridge are spaced too far apart...so fixing the nut won't make the instrument playable. We're going to fill in the string slots in the bridge pin holes, and saw new ones...On the left, the old bridge slots can be seen--very unevenly spaced. On the right, we're gluing some ebony binding into the slots, so we can re-cut them and try again. It won't solve the problem of the holes being too far apart, but it should help.

 

Here is the bridge after filling the slots, and re-cutting them to minimize the distance between the strings. I didn't have to touch the low e string slot...it was already cut as far to the inside as it could be. The string spacing is now even, and the low and high e strings are more evenly spaced inside the fingerboard. A new saddle is also in the saddle slot.

Now, it's time to attach the neck...first, clamping and cleaning glue squeezeout, then a good side view of the neck clamped on.

 

We re-insert the fret that was pulled out. This doesn't always work, but if we can save our customer the price of a new fret job, we'll try. And the guitar doesn't really need a new fret job. However, it does have (at least) one high fret...we'll file it down and see if we have a playable instrument. First, we're rocking the level part of a square on the fret to check its height.

 

 

Next, we file down the high fret (we only found one)

On the left, filing the nut, and in the center photo, getting the action set right...using a feeler gauge to check string height at the first fret. On the right, using a ruler to check string height at the 12th fret...

Finall, it's done. I'm taking it out for a test drive....

It's truly great to have some of these old beauties come into our shop. It's like working on a little piece of history. Again, our thanks to Scott Baxendale.