wow.. mind blown. Great job! I have a Gibson es-339 that I recently acquired and the bass side relief is noticeably more than the treble side..almost as if a dip in the fingerboard between 7 & 14. Is something like that correctable and/or worth correcting? I am local to you and would love for you to look at it.
Fred, I am so very pleased with the magic you performed on my Gibson. The neck went from awful to awesome. I am very fortunate that I stumbled upon this video and found you to be local. Genius at work.. Many thanks.
I have a Strat neck with a maxed out truss rod and a forward bow. I clamped it between two blocks on the fretboard and a soft block on the back, tightened to about 2mm back bow, and put it on top of an oil filled room heater for a few hours. I let it cool, released the clamp, and it’s fixed! No steam needed, just heat. Now it still needs a good fret leveling but at least it’s usable again. It was good to see I wasn’t crazy to think heat alone would bend this back.
Man you always figure out the best and most efficient ways to do everything, you are like my guitar building guru. I'm not joking, I've been building guitars for a while now and I learned most of what I know from you and Fletcher.
Freddy, Your videos are the most informative/no nonsense guitar repair videos I've seen on UA-cam yet (and I watch ALL of the "popular repair guys") Thank You Sir!
I followed this procedure for my slightly twisted Les Paul neck and it totally worked! It's now straight again and perfectly playable after setting it up! Thanks!
Thank you for posting this, exactly what I needed! Thank God for UA-cam, I can't imagine how many words (and pages) this would have taken to describe well in a book, or how many hours (or days!) it would have taken to find such a chapter/article/etc. in printed form. THANK YOU.
Nice work. I've always done this using a heat gun without removing the fretboard. It's pretty amazing how bad a neck can get and how it can be brought back.
...thanks for the upload...up to now, this is the best video I've seen on neck twist repair. I just received my new Ibanez, which I bought on line, I set it up as best as I can, but there's neck twist, preventing low action, which is a shame, because it's really nice looking. I'm going to contact the shop where I bought it from tomorrow (as it is closed on Sundays), and see if they'll either replace or repair it. Since I've seen this, it has given me confidence to know that it is repairable. I just need to find a local luthier. Thanks again....
Brilliant and well done, I just did a severe back bow from (probably) being left in a hot place for a long time, on a classical, took off the fingerboard, thinking to straighten it and the neck separately. Hadn't thought to try it without the finger board removal.
This video is great! I have been reading up a lot on how to do this, and this takes a lot of the hocus pocus out of the process. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Thank you for this video. I had a gresch 5120 with a badly twisted neck. I used this technique without removing the fingerboard or frets. I figured I had nothing to lose as the guitar was pretty much unplayable.I couldn't use the iron so I wrapped the neck with a heat pad from the drugstore. It worked. I had a small amount of fret board separation at the nut. I reheated that section and after it was warmed up I clamped it and let it cool for several hours. That fixed it.
Genius! My poor wee Korean made Les Paul/Love Rock had a warped neck from the cold climate where I live. You used a spirit level too! Using the strings at the headstock to give "guidance" to the warped neck was inspired. I'd have needed to use the E and D strings for my guitar. An excellent video.
i used this technique to fix a badly warped neck on an old heritage acoustic a customer brought me to restore. worked like a charm. thanks a bunch freddy, cheers from nyc
Great video and tips! I actually used a hybrid of this method on a severely twisted acoustic guitar. Instead of using an iron, I used a heating blanket (and moisture) after securing the guitar down on my work surface. I ended up having to repeat this over several days and left the guitar secured in the jig for almost a week. In the end, it worked. Thanks for sharing this
Great video! Thanks for the lesson! I have a Les Paul that slightly twists in the opposite direction starting around the 5th fret. Will very gently and carefully try this.
Damned awesome Freddy . an inspired way to address that twist and bow at the same time !! I've learnt so much watching your videos . I just recently finished a maple neck refret following your excellent tutorial and I'm just refretting a rosewood one that some so-called guitar repairer decided to flatten with the truss rod tightened !! Eeeeek . Everything seems so clear to me now . I can look at a neck and instantly see the problems - thanks mate !!!
Hi mate. Just wanted to say thanks for the info/video. I recently bought a chibson double neck that turned up with a serious twist in the 12 string. I set up this rig just as described and it worked a treat :) The only downside was I must've had the iron on a bit too hot as the inlays popped out. The surprising thing was they were actual real mother of pearl !! Anyway with a gentle tap with hammer and small bit of wood the went back in ok and with a slight sand with 360 and then 1000, they were as good as new. Thanks again buddy. Top tip.
I managed to use this method, with an iron on the metal straight-edge, directly on the frets of my $50 pawn shop Epiphone "Junior" neck. The neck was at the tight edge of truss rod adjustment with more needed. I backed the truss rod way down but not all the way before starting. I thought I had failed when it came back into tune with a bow but straightened with just a small adjustment. Lots of room left if necessary - so far so good! Please post if you try on your Strat. (Thanks FreddysFrets!)
You can also use a small jack screw mech at that point, to add more tension if the neck needs that much. I was able to save a classical style neck that looked like you could play horseshoes with it, by going slowly, let it relax a little at a time. That one took three weeks plus a couple of days, I'd tighten it up a little bit more every day. Now it's the sweetest playing, sounding guitar I have. It's very old, though I don't know how old.
glad to know this can be done with the fretboard still on. i would asssume recirculating hot water in some 1cm tubing around the neck would probably be a good method of heating everything together, though a bit messier if something were to go wrong
Good technique,a heat gun is handy to get all or most moisture out ,heating while adjusting and playing to shape n mold to desired straightness.oiling fret board help keeps the moisture out.best sounding n straightest guitar I ever had sat in my car all year round plus 30 to minus 30 temperatures.you ll notice a humidifier in guitar shops do nothing but baby the guitar .you play a gig the humidity will not be the same,you jam outside. ...not the same. Point is don't baby ur guitar if you want it at it's best
I was trained in woodworking by my dad. A master of the craft. But I've always been curious about how things work, so I would take things apart and put them back together. Even when I was 12 years old my dad bought me a motorcycle and I wanted to know how it worked so I took it apart. Every nut bolt and ball bearing (even the transmission) I had parts all methodically laid out in the garage and when my dad saw that he shook his head but he wasn't mad. I put it all back together and it ran fine!
FreddysFrets reminds me of when my old Subaru as a kid got smashed and I didn't have the money for a body shop. So my dad and I parked the car against the curb and wrapped a come-along winch around a tree and kept ratcheting down until the sub frame was straight. On a side note, years later, do you know if that guitar neck is still good? I have a Guild F50 with some warping.
@@jefferyaeastman Freddy didn’t respond, but I will. 9 times out of 10, the neck returns to the twisted/warped state. The only fool proof method of ‘bending wood’ is to introduce steam and/or actual water to soften the wood fibers as you add heat. At that point, you ARE indeed refinishing the neck.
Hey Freddy, Love this technique and am going to give it a go on a Gibson j100 .... Here's a thought, using the same technique less the neck support and heating the shoulders of the guitar it may be able to correct a poor neck angle ... Makes sense that since string tension in one direction causes the neck angle to pull forward, string tension in the opposite direction could correct it ....
This video was quite informative/helpful/awesome, I'm gonna get this method a shot on this Dean ML I got off of my friend a few months back, the thing was set up quite nicely when I bought it, but I left it in storage for like 2 weeks, when I took it home, I noticed the neck(specifically the maple) had some curvature, I'm not sure if that's how most Modern C-cut necks are, but I shrugged it off until the time came for a truss rod adjustment, but whenever I tried to tighten the rod, the curvature was still there, It has sort of an up-bow,Sometimes I wonder why I'm going through all of this trouble trying to un-warp a Korean Made Dean lol. I'm glad I've stumbled across this video when I did, now I know how to fix it, Thanks man :)
@@danielrainville8094 Thanks for the reply! So loosening is to back bow and put more relief into it? I'm a bit confused about adjusting the rod before beginning
It may or may not work depending on the severity. All you can do is try. Loosen the tension of the truss rod before heating and give it a good amount of back bend while heating.
Amazing.Great vid! I guess it would be harder to do this with fingerboard still on, right? Need some way to get the heat in there. I guess you could take some steel bar stock and grind slots for the frets in it?..a lot of work, and radius would mess with it . Hmm just need tons of cheap thick thermal paste? lol or actual idea? I wonder if many guitars warp like this with just time, especially if set with far too much relief? It kinda freaks me that car trunk temp could do this, like maybe 175F. I guess the woods are heat dried to begin with, but that doesn't prevent the wood from getting weaker/more flexible when heated? Can we assume the string tension is what warped it that direction? I guess maybe sometimes necks start out more flexible, more elastic/less strong and so the truss rod is more the thing controlling it then, but then older neck might get stronger with age in general (until heated)?
Thank you !! You are the PRO of Pros !!! and one mor thing ... do i need to take all the frets out to do this !! I think logically that forcing relief with frets will be harder cause it frets acts as a rod and the grooves can get wider and evidently frets can get lose or pop out !! Specially since i know the guy refretted the neck dont like glue and did not use glue on the refretting job !!!
you could use the same technique but use suspended light bulbs as a heat source. The trick is to get the temperature hot enough so it affects the neck but not so hot as to scorch anything.
I have an old 1945 Harmony arch top , been trying to straighten the neck for weeks! It was no truss rod. I’ve been using clamps and heat gun. Using the tuners is genius! Why didn’t I think of that !? I’ll give it a try.
So, after reading this and having never worked on a guitar before, I tried it on an old short neck small acoustic. removed the bolt on neck, made a little cradle/ jig out of a block of wood, sighted down the length of the neck for twist and found none. Hit it with the iron and a hair dryer and left it overnight. Minimal difference. Repeated with more backward bow and left it overnight. Less than a mil of bow! Once again, this time, over bent it, a bit, to compensate for eventual string tension
wow.. mind blown. Great job! I have a Gibson es-339 that I recently acquired and the bass side relief is noticeably more than the treble side..almost as if a dip in the fingerboard between 7 & 14. Is something like that correctable and/or worth correcting? I am local to you and would love for you to look at it.
Hey Rusty! Probably fixable (well...anything is fixable :) I will be happy to take a look at it!
Fred, I am so very pleased with the magic you performed on my Gibson. The neck went from awful to awesome. I am very fortunate that I stumbled upon this video and found you to be local. Genius at work.. Many thanks.
Glad to hear it Rusty!
This right here is the most satisfying thing I've read in the comment section of youtube in years.
@@Rusty_Spoke That's fantastic. Please pray for us, for guitar repair, We mainly have guitar center and sam ash here in Central Florida. Ahahaha.
I have a Strat neck with a maxed out truss rod and a forward bow. I clamped it between two blocks on the fretboard and a soft block on the back, tightened to about 2mm back bow, and put it on top of an oil filled room heater for a few hours. I let it cool, released the clamp, and it’s fixed! No steam needed, just heat. Now it still needs a good fret leveling but at least it’s usable again. It was good to see I wasn’t crazy to think heat alone would bend this back.
this is one of the most inventive little tutorials I've seen on youtube so far. Very cool.
Wow, this is one of the best fix guitar neck video's I've ever come across here on UA-cam!! Gave me plenty of ideas!! Thanks! 😊🏆 🎼🎸👍
Man you always figure out the best and most efficient ways to do everything, you are like my guitar building guru. I'm not joking, I've been building guitars for a while now and I learned most of what I know from you and Fletcher.
Freddy, Your videos are the most informative/no nonsense guitar repair videos I've seen on UA-cam yet (and I watch ALL of the "popular repair guys") Thank You Sir!
Thanks for the kind comment!
I followed this procedure for my slightly twisted Les Paul neck and it totally worked! It's now straight again and perfectly playable after setting it up! Thanks!
Thank you for posting this, exactly what I needed! Thank God for UA-cam, I can't imagine how many words (and pages) this would have taken to describe well in a book, or how many hours (or days!) it would have taken to find such a chapter/article/etc. in printed form. THANK YOU.
Super vid, love the tuning machine neck tensioners!
Absolutely mind-boggling video. Your utilization of simple yet astonishingly effective methods is truly amazing to my 16-year-old mind
How have I missed this channel over the years? Done...subscribed!
Why do i have not a Luthier as skillful as this man near me . This guy is awesome and clearly takes pride in his work dedicated on a perfect repair.
Probably the best video in UA-cam about the topic. Great job.
Nice work. I've always done this using a heat gun without removing the fretboard. It's pretty amazing how bad a neck can get and how it can be brought back.
Did you fasten the guitar down and tie the a and d strings like Freddy while using the heat gun and how'd it come out?
Freddy, this is absolutely genius. Awesome work as always!
...thanks for the upload...up to now, this is the best video I've seen on neck twist repair. I just received my new Ibanez, which I bought on line, I set it up as best as I can, but there's neck twist, preventing low action, which is a shame, because it's really nice looking. I'm going to contact the shop where I bought it from tomorrow (as it is closed on Sundays), and see if they'll either replace or repair it. Since I've seen this, it has given me confidence to know that it is repairable. I just need to find a local luthier. Thanks again....
Nice work and very nice of you to share your techniques !
Brilliant and well done, I just did a severe back bow from (probably) being left in a hot place for a long time, on a classical, took off the fingerboard, thinking to straighten it and the neck separately. Hadn't thought to try it without the finger board removal.
This video is great! I have been reading up a lot on how to do this, and this takes a lot of the hocus pocus out of the process. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
This is absolutely brilliant! Thank you for this video!
Incredible! What a great technique, thanks for sharing!
Excellent video brother. probably the easiest method i have seen so far. doesn't involve a crazy amount of tools either. thanks alot!
Thank you for this video. I had a gresch 5120 with a badly twisted neck. I used this technique without removing the fingerboard or frets. I figured I had nothing to lose as the guitar was pretty much unplayable.I couldn't use the iron so I wrapped the neck with a heat pad from the drugstore. It worked. I had a small amount of fret board separation at the nut. I reheated that section and after it was warmed up I clamped it and let it cool for several hours. That fixed it.
Genius! My poor wee Korean made Les Paul/Love Rock had a warped neck from the cold climate where I live. You used a spirit level too! Using the strings at the headstock to give "guidance" to the warped neck was inspired. I'd have needed to use the E and D strings for my guitar.
An excellent video.
Well done! Thank you so much. It is just the innovative concept I needed.
i used this technique to fix a badly warped neck on an old heritage acoustic a customer brought me to restore. worked like a charm. thanks a bunch freddy, cheers from nyc
That's fantastic! Cheers!
You sir are a genius.
Nice work! Love the idea of using the machine heads to twist the neck back into line.
Great video and tips! I actually used a hybrid of this method on a severely twisted acoustic guitar. Instead of using an iron, I used a heating blanket (and moisture) after securing the guitar down on my work surface. I ended up having to repeat this over several days and left the guitar secured in the jig for almost a week. In the end, it worked.
Thanks for sharing this
Brilliant work, very impressed, you're very clever, thankyou for the video , really enjoyed it.
Great video! Thanks for the lesson! I have a Les Paul that slightly twists in the opposite direction starting around the 5th fret. Will very gently and carefully try this.
Damned awesome Freddy . an inspired way to address that twist and bow at the same time !! I've learnt so much watching your videos . I just recently finished a maple neck refret following your excellent tutorial and I'm just refretting a rosewood one that some so-called guitar repairer decided to flatten with the truss rod tightened !! Eeeeek . Everything seems so clear to me now . I can look at a neck and instantly see the problems - thanks mate !!!
Great job- thanks very much. Using the tuners for both the bow & twist is very cool
Thats fantastic , thank you for sharing with us all!!!
Videos like this, are exactly why I love UA-cam!!!!
This is god damn genius! I want to learn from you! Your methods and work are fabulous!
Hi mate.
Just wanted to say thanks for the info/video. I recently bought a chibson double neck that turned up with a serious twist in the 12 string. I set up this rig just as described and it worked a treat :) The only downside was I must've had the iron on a bit too hot as the inlays popped out. The surprising thing was they were actual real mother of pearl !! Anyway with a gentle tap with hammer and small bit of wood the went back in ok and with a slight sand with 360 and then 1000, they were as good as new. Thanks again buddy. Top tip.
Great job. This guy is the best tech I've ever seen! :)
Loved this! You sir, are a genius.
Really nice work mate. Ingenious idea.
Excellent work as always Freddy!
That's a great save. Pulling a win out of a fail. Respect.
Genius! Best video ive found so far on this....
Awesome,,,,I love it when I actually learn cool stuff,,,,thank you sir.
Nice job I like how you assess the situation rather than start from scratch by filling all holes. As one might think that is the beginning required
I managed to use this method, with an iron on the metal straight-edge, directly on the frets of my $50 pawn shop Epiphone "Junior" neck. The neck was at the tight edge of truss rod adjustment with more needed.
I backed the truss rod way down but not all the way before starting. I thought I had failed when it came back into tune with a bow but straightened with just a small adjustment. Lots of room left if necessary - so far so good!
Please post if you try on your Strat.
(Thanks FreddysFrets!)
You can also use a small jack screw mech at that point, to add more tension if the neck needs that much. I was able to save a classical style neck that looked like you could play horseshoes with it, by going slowly, let it relax a little at a time. That one took three weeks plus a couple of days, I'd tighten it up a little bit more every day. Now it's the sweetest playing, sounding guitar I have. It's very old, though I don't know how old.
Very clever, with the pegs. Nicely done video!
That is brilliant. I'm a bassist myself but the principle will be the same with any neck I'm guessing. Thanks for the upload, most ingenious.
What a brilliant idea. Thanks.
Wow ! Excellent work.
U r real smart and generous, thank u!!!
This video is a gem. Thanks!
Wow! You make it look easy.
glad to know this can be done with the fretboard still on. i would asssume recirculating hot water in some 1cm tubing around the neck would probably be a good method of heating everything together, though a bit messier if something were to go wrong
You do amazing work.
very original and very clever sire!!
Nice work Dr. Cox!
That was a fantastic very informative video, thanks!
So genius! thanks for sharing man!
amazing and very clear teaching
Awesome work as allways.
Good technique,a heat gun is handy to get all or most moisture out ,heating while adjusting and playing to shape n mold to desired straightness.oiling fret board help keeps the moisture out.best sounding n straightest guitar I ever had sat in my car all year round plus 30 to minus 30 temperatures.you ll notice a humidifier in guitar shops do nothing but baby the guitar .you play a gig the humidity will not be the same,you jam outside. ...not the same. Point is don't baby ur guitar if you want it at it's best
Brilliant video! Thanks :)
I was trained in woodworking by my dad. A master of the craft. But I've always been curious about how things work, so I would take things apart and put them back together. Even when I was 12 years old my dad bought me a motorcycle and I wanted to know how it worked so I took it apart. Every nut bolt and ball bearing (even the transmission) I had parts all methodically laid out in the garage and when my dad saw that he shook his head but he wasn't mad. I put it all back together and it ran fine!
FreddysFrets reminds me of when my old Subaru as a kid got smashed and I didn't have the money for a body shop. So my dad and I parked the car against the curb and wrapped a come-along winch around a tree and kept ratcheting down until the sub frame was straight.
On a side note, years later, do you know if that guitar neck is still good? I have a Guild F50 with some warping.
@@jefferyaeastman Freddy didn’t respond, but I will. 9 times out of 10, the neck returns to the twisted/warped state. The only fool proof method of ‘bending wood’ is to introduce steam and/or actual water to soften the wood fibers as you add heat. At that point, you ARE indeed refinishing the neck.
Pro Video thank you for the actually useful info & a trick or 2. Nice Job
Excellent vid!
Wow great instruction m8 really helpful thanks
Great work Freddy.It would be interesting to show how you removed and reinstalled the fretboard as well.
rally nice ingenious luthier hack, thanks for sharing :D
That's amazing... i'm going to sort mine out exactly like that! cheers!
I was only wondering, I love the way you work and I love the ...Blaggard! have a nice day Fred,
From Italy
Awesome video
Hey Freddy, Love this technique and am going to give it a go on a Gibson j100 .... Here's a thought, using the same technique less the neck support and heating the shoulders of the guitar it may be able to correct a poor neck angle ... Makes sense that since string tension in one direction causes the neck angle to pull forward, string tension in the opposite direction could correct it ....
Amazing skill !
This video was quite informative/helpful/awesome, I'm gonna get this method a shot on this Dean ML I got off of my friend a few months back, the thing was set up quite nicely when I bought it, but I left it in storage for like 2 weeks, when I took it home, I noticed the neck(specifically the maple) had some curvature, I'm not sure if that's how most Modern C-cut necks are, but I shrugged it off until the time came for a truss rod adjustment, but whenever I tried to tighten the rod, the curvature was still there, It has sort of an up-bow,Sometimes I wonder why I'm going through all of this trouble trying to un-warp a Korean Made Dean lol. I'm glad I've stumbled across this video when I did, now I know how to fix it, Thanks man :)
Jake Harvey I also subbed!
Some good ideas 💡 thank you
This guy's a genius!
Very smart. Great Video
Thanks a lot man your trick save my twisted neck even with fretborad on it! Very ingenius way of thincking!
Hi did you adjusr the truss rod before the process? Trying to straighten out a bc rich nj mockingbird set neck
@@yefartz108 I turn the truss rod to be not effective, completely loose. left turn !
@@danielrainville8094 Thanks for the reply! So loosening is to back bow and put more relief into it? I'm a bit confused about adjusting the rod before beginning
@@yefartz108 Yes you put tension OFF
Genius Freddy, Thanks!
Brilliant, was wondering if this twist ever came back
It may or may not work depending on the severity. All you can do is try.
Loosen the tension of the truss rod before heating and give it a good amount of back bend while heating.
That, sir is very impressive. Good work.
+Stratboy999 Thanks so much for your kind comment!
Amazing.Great vid! I guess it would be harder to do this with fingerboard still on, right? Need some way to get the heat in there. I guess you could take some steel bar stock and grind slots for the frets in it?..a lot of work, and radius would mess with it . Hmm just need tons of cheap thick thermal paste? lol or actual idea? I wonder if many guitars warp like this with just time, especially if set with far too much relief? It kinda freaks me that car trunk temp could do this, like maybe 175F. I guess the woods are heat dried to begin with, but that doesn't prevent the wood from getting weaker/more flexible when heated? Can we assume the string tension is what warped it that direction? I guess maybe sometimes necks start out more flexible, more elastic/less strong and so the truss rod is more the thing controlling it then, but then older neck might get stronger with age in general (until heated)?
Thank you !! You are the PRO of Pros !!! and one mor thing ... do i need to take all the frets out to do this !! I think logically that forcing relief with frets will be harder cause it frets acts as a rod and the grooves can get wider and evidently frets can get lose or pop out !! Specially since i know the guy refretted the neck dont like glue and did not use glue on the refretting job !!!
Great video for some insight, even though people may not want to do it themselves.
awesome awesome awesome thank you for the post
That's brilliant!
That tuner clamping technique... Jesus that's cool.
Very informative! Thank you! Do you have a video of how you took the fretboard off?
you could use the same technique but use suspended light bulbs as a heat source. The trick is to get the temperature hot enough so it affects the neck but not so hot as to scorch anything.
That's a great idea! thanks I'll use that some time I'm sure.
great job Sir
I have an old 1945 Harmony arch top , been trying to straighten the neck for weeks! It was no truss rod. I’ve been using clamps and heat gun. Using the tuners is genius! Why didn’t I think of that !? I’ll give it a try.
Brilliant.
You’re a damn genius.
WOW that was a great vid thanks fo much made me smile...:O)
So, after reading this and having never worked on a guitar before, I tried it on an old short neck small acoustic. removed the bolt on neck, made a little cradle/ jig out of a block of wood, sighted down the length of the neck for twist and found none. Hit it with the iron and a hair dryer and left it overnight. Minimal difference. Repeated with more backward bow and left it overnight. Less than a mil of bow! Once again, this time, over bent it, a bit, to compensate for eventual string tension
Outstanding