resetting a neck

[pete*mando]

I picked up a beat up 1942 Gibson A-model about a year ago hoping someday I would have the time to restore it. I have absolutely have no experience with mandolin building or repair but consider myself pretty good at researching and learning on my own. The mandolin has a problem where the way the neck is placed the bridge is required to be filed down so that action is not rediculously high. The mandolin is basically came set up very janky and is playable but has nearly any merit. I wanted to ask generally if resetting a neck with no truss rod successfully is a task a beginner is caple of and if anybody had recomendations for liteture on mandolin repair procedures.

[sunburst]

Generally, I wouldn't recommend resetting a Gibson neck as a project for a beginner. A neck set on a mandolin is complicated by curves and angles that a guitar neck set doesn't have.
I would not say you couldn't do it, but I've known at least one experienced guitar repairman who gave up part way through a mandolin neck set. He knew when to stop, through experience, before he did any damage. A beginner might not make the same judgement.

[Frank Ford]

I'd cut the bridge to achieve lower action, and I'd plane the fingerboard & refret the neck if it's not straight. Resetting a Gibson mandolin neck is not a trivial job, so I'd do what I could to avoid it.

That said, I reset the neck on my old F-2 back in 1967, before I'd started even building my first guitar, so by those standards, a beginner can get through the job without instruction or help. At the time I couldn't afford paying to have the job done, and I had to reset the neck because I'd left the instrument in a hot car, causing the neck to become catastrophically loose.

But, if your motive for resetting is the hope that you'll improve a weak sounding mandolin, do yourself a favor and consider getting another instrument. Most of the Gibsons from that era are so heavily built there's not much chance of improvement outside disassembly and serious regraduation of the top and back. I measured one that was THREE TIMES too thick in some areas of the top. . .

[Mando Medic]

Pete, I've reset a few mandolin necks and I'm here to tell you, don't do it. It's quite a process. One fellow from my area decided to do his own and he wound up destroying the neck. When I quoted him a price for a new neck and installation, he nearly went beserk. By the way, he's a postman and you know how they get? Kenc