Noobie question about taking off the neck

[marianozz]

hey guys, i never took out a neck... so, my question is, how hard is it? and specially, how hard is it to put it back in?

what makes me more than "afraid" to do it is the fact that screwing/unscrewing/screwing back into wood kinda "damages" it, as we all see with the strap pins' screws... so, what precautions should i take with the neck, so i dont f**k it up and end up ruining the body?


thx...

[Algiman]

The first question is why do you want to take the neck off?

It is as easy as it sounds - remove (or slacken) the strings and unscrew to 4 screws. There is almost no chance of damaging the body. Most guitar necks have screws with large threads on them so although you don't want to be removing the neck every day, doing it once or twice isn't going to do any damage.

[Jammy]

Its a pretty easy procedure. Just make sure when you put it back on that its straight (string up and check the spacing between the outermost strings and the edge of the fretboard, slacken the screws and adjust if needed). Also make sure if the guitar has a weird neck joint that you remember where the screws went - I say this only cus some older jacksons (and other guitars) had a slanted neck joint area, and different length screws, mess that up and they'll exit out of the fretboard! :P
Go slow and take care! Let us know how it turned out....

[Rich]

If you don't pull it out straight and even it's easy to chip the finish around the neck pocket, that's really the only concern unless you find you have an extremely tight neck pocket.

[sp7bsb]

If you take the neck off a guitar do you have to adjust the truss rod any?

[marianozz]

thx guys... im starting to think about turning my 1st guitar (a cheap Ibanez Silver Cadet strat) into a natural finish... and change stuff on it, you know.... fiddle around, get to feel what its like to work on a guitar besides just playing it ...

So, i want to be extra careful, not cause of the money, but because this ones very dear to me, being my 1st and all... i certainly dont wanna screw it up...