Insert a very metal greeting here. Dude.
Earlier in my career I broke the neck off my Ibanez ArtStar 350 guitar. It was a totally avoidable mistake. There was at least three preventable actions that lined up to cause this. First, I used a soft shell case to carry my guitar to gigs. Second, I laid it down on top of my amp in the trunk of my car after the gig. Third, and maybe more importantly, I had gotten fairly drunk at the gig! The rest is history. I eyeballed the space between the guitar and where my intoxicated geospacial logic estimated it could fit, then slammed the hood. It locked, no harm no foul. Lets go home.
The next day I took the Artstar out and was not pleased to find an instrument that more resembled an archer’s bow than a hollow body jazz box. Luckily, it was a very clean break and the guitar neck had just kind of been popped loose from it’s resting place. There was little to no damage and most of that was cosmetic. However, a guitar without a neck is worthless. So, the Artstar got put in it’s case for nearly a decade, and I went off to travel the world. Hey, at least it was on the European tour in 2001. I also used this guitar for the prison tours with The International Hustlers.
How to reattach a guitar neck
Nearly 15 years later, enter Mark Agustin in San Diego California. Mark has been repairing guitars (and playing them too) his entire life. He was a close personal friend of jazz guitar legend Joe Pass.
Jazz guitar legend Joe Pass.
I was introduced to Mark from an old guitar buddy of mine back east, Seth Johnson. Mark and I have become friends over the time I have been in San Diego, and he agreed to help me reattach the neck to the Artstar. Below is the gallery of some halfassed photos of the process.
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- Pretesting the clamp locations.
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- Body clamp pretest.
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- Body clamp pretest 2
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- Body clamp pretest 3
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- Body clamp pretest 4
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- Body clamp pretest 5
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- Removing all glue.
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- A clean neck.
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- Clean out the neck pocket.
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- Mark works on his solo guitar chops and nervously watches the Chargers game.
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- Adding glue.
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- Spreading glue is messy. Two sets of hands helps.
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- Clamping the neck into the pocket.
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- Adding a bench clamp to really push the neck up into the pocket securely.
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- Bench clamp angle 1.
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- Bench clamp angle 2.
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- A trickle of glue is coming out, which is a good sign the clamp is tight.
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- Let is set for at least 48 hours.
Needless to say the result was better than expected. Once, we got the guitar reattached and out the clamps I set it up with medium heavy gauge chromes. It played great, but all the time sitting in the case in storage units had damaged some of the electronics. Mark fixed that too! It’s great having my old trusty axe back, and just picking it up brings back a lot of fond memories (some of them a little fuzzy at times). The Ibanez Artstar is now back on it’s stand in my practice studio and I enjoy playing again.
Mark’s Guitar Exchange is serving two locations in San Diego, California. He offers a complete line of guitar repair services, guitars, basses, amplifiers, and a whole lot more. They also have a lesson studio and offer music lessons to all ages. When not at the shop you can catch Mark performing around town with various music projects.
Mark’s Guitar Exchange
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