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70s Alvarez neck joint

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 11:21 am
by Bob Dodds
I couldn’t find much info on the neck joints in 70s Alvarez guitars, so I thought I would put this on the net somewhere to help someone else. The guitar is #5045 00 12 fret. I had come across the terms AMJ and AMG, and I think this would fall under the former term. I had a feeling this would not be a dovetail, but it wasn’t until I had eventually removed the lower fret board and sawn the neck off, that the joint was revealed, dowels. Tanglewood are using a similar neck joint with dowels on some models.
The truss rod is encased in a thick aluminum extrusion, which effectively becomes part of the neck joint.


Hopefully someday, some very knowledgeable person will put together a data base on guitar models and their neck joints

Re: 70s Alvarez neck joint

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 12:00 pm
by Freeman Keller
Good to know about, Bob. Here is another one - this is a Regal resonator - it did have a dovetail but it was filled with something that looks like bondo and somewhat like your, the truss rod extends into that block of wood under the fretboard extension

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Once I dug the bondo out, the dovetail was one of the worst I had ever seen - factory shimmed on one side but hardly any wood to wood contact. I ended up making a bolt on out of it.