Quote:
Originally Posted by dantin
This is George Lowden's reply in 2003 to neck reset question:....
Back in the mid '70s when I was designing the Lowden guitar ( at that
stage the O series only) I noticed a tendency for some of these
problems to happen pretty early on, so I developed a number of
solutions as follows:
1) The dovetail joint compression: I removed the gap at the front of
the dovetail always present in production guitars and I made sure that
the shoulders of the dovetail matched the curvature of the guitar
sides. This increased the surface contact area within the dovetail very
significantly and eliminated neck angle instability through dovetail
movement, totally......HOWEVER.. it also made it infinitely more
difficult to inject steam to loosen the joint to remove it, if
something did go wrong! The gaps present in other acoustics both
contributed to the potential need for a neck reset.... and also
facilitated the reset itself because the gaps in the joint made it
easier to loosen the joint! I took the view that it is better to
eliminate the causes of neck resets in the first place. I am also aware
that maximum wood to wood contact within a guitar, helps promote
sustain, amongst other things. Note, the gap at the front of the
dovetail and the scalloping away of the shoulders of the neck, both
make it easier and quicker to fit a dovetail joint in a factory
situation.
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Talk about shooting yourself in the foot ... I did actually own a Lowden a couple of years ago , (and a fine sounding guitar it was too) but after reading that reply, I would certainly never buy another.
I particularly take issue with
"the shoulders of the dovetail matched the curvature of the guitar
sides"
If the neck heel is tapered, then it behoves the maker to ensure that the contact area between the heel and the sides is absolutely flat, irrespective of the curve of the shoulders.
If the neck heel is parallel, then of course it doesn't matter. But the Lowden heels are tapered ... so ...I really don't get what he is trying to say.