RESTORING AN ORIGINAL
JOhN BROWN
‘ 62 Fender Strat Neck Chiropractic Adjustment
The US Postal Service arrived at our door with a
box slightly bigger than a guitar neck stamped
“Priority.” It was a cold day here in Minnesota,
so I let everything acclimate overnight to avoid
damage, before opening the box to see what
treasures might be lying within. The next morning, I opened up the box and saw one of the
cleanest 1962 Fender Strat necks I’ve ever
seen—so clean I might have questioned its origin, but it was in fact the real deal.
Inspection
At first glance, the reason this neck was sent
to us was unclear. After thoroughly inspecting
it and adjusting the truss rod nut to a neutral,
loose position, the neck had a back bow of
.024" from level. My choice of tools for measuring the back bow was a set of feeler gauges
my brother Bob bought for me in the late ‘80s
and a 25. 5"-scale notched straightedge. Once
the straightedge was resting firmly against the
fingerboard, I measured the gap between the
playing surface of the fingerboard and the leveled surface of the straightedge by using my
feeler gauges at the first position.
Neck Straightening
Correcting this neck for .008" to .010" of
relief under string pressure, while still having a
half to a full turn of truss rod nut adjustment,
was not going to be achieved in one session. Much like going in for some chiropractic
adjustments for neck or back pain, one session is rarely enough to get the adjustment
to take hold. Guitar neck problems like this
are usually caused by alternating extremes
of dampness and dryness, or the expansion
and contraction of the neck and fingerboard
woods. There are also a variety of different
warps going on from neck to neck. The neck
we restored here had a gradual yet overall
extreme back bow. I used a neck heater and
a variety of shims and clamps to manipulate
everything back into place. There are a number of ways to heat a neck for correcting its
posture, using such products as a Halogen
lamp, a heating blanket or an iron bar neck
heater. For this project I used a discontinued
product by Stew Mac that I purchased from a
repairman twenty some years ago. I know it
as the S.M. Neck Heater.
I first attached the neck with four screws to a
raw, leftover body blank that I had around for
just these kinds of jobs. Then I placed it into my
string tension simulator/Erlewine neck jig and
adjusted it to create excess forward relief in
the neck. I shaped two shims out of mahogany
with a 7. 25" bottom radius to sit on each end
between the fingerboard and the neck heater,
elevating the iron bar heater about 3/8” from the
fingerboard surface. Using these shims helped
protect against any damage to the fingerboard
or clay dots during this long, drawn-out process.
session—and perhaps going too far and having to reverse the neck bow you just put in.
The following tools from Stew Mac were used
for this project. Though there may be other
tools and repair procedures to achieve simi-
lar results, this is what worked for me when
restoring this particular neck:
I then used a camless clamp on each end to
secure everything in place, with a surface ther-
mometer sitting top and center on the neck
heater. The heater is designed to regulate at
250 degrees, but I always like to monitor it to
ensure the temperature is stable and not going
into a danger zone. Considering the value of
this neck, it’s an important safety precaution.
#3814 Notched Straightedge
#1811 Feeler Gauges
#4603 Surface Thermometer
#5252 Erlewine Neck Jig
#3708 Small Camless Clamps
#3709 Large Camless Clamps
#2004 Neck Relief Gauge
S.M. Neck Heater (discontinued)
Thanks to you, PG readers, “Restoring an
Original” is off to another fantastic year! See
you next month.
By the end of the day of the first session, the
bottom of the neck felt comfortably warm. I
shut off the neck heater overnight, allowing for
a cooling-down period so the soft glue joint
between the fingerboard and neck could harden
and reset. I used the neck relief gauge between
sessions to measure each result. It took a total of
four sessions to get the result I was looking for.
Keep in mind, it’s always a good idea to go by
the 15–20-minute rule when first applying heat
to see the results achieved before a marathon
John Brown
John Brown, of Brown's Guitar Factory, is the inventor of the
Fretted/Less bass. He owns and operates a full guitar manu-
facturing and repair/restoration facility, which is staffed by
a team of talented luthiers. He is also the designer of guitar
making/repair tools and accessories that are used today by
instrument builders throughout the world.
brownsguitarfactory.com
info@brownsguitarfactory.com
