softening Gorilla glue

[Dave Teeter]

I recently purchased an old arch top. The neck has a definite bow which I want to remove. Upon removing the fingerboard I discovered that someone previously had done a neck reset and glued it in with Gorilla glue. I have tried steam and acetone to try to soften the glue enough to remove the neck. I have found nothing that works. Any ideas?

[Barry Daniels]

I don't know of anything that will dissolve polyurethane glue.

Why do you need to remove the neck? What are you planning on doing to straighten the neck? Does it have a truss rod?

[Dave Teeter]

I want to remove the neck, plane it then install a carbon fiber tube for strength. At present it only has a thin steel bar, which definitely did not work.

[Barry Daniels]

I install carbon fiber bars in necks without taking the neck off. Might want to check the threads here. By the way, a solid carbon bar or rod is stiffer than a hollow tube.

https://www.mimf.com//phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5890

https://www.mimf.com//phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5637

[David King]

You could potentially saw the neck out with a series of razor saws and destroy either the neck or the end-block in the process.
If you were patient enough you might be able to drill a series of adjacent holes down through the glueline from above since the fingerboard is off. If that worked you could then build the tenon back up to fill the newly enlarged mortice. You can get 1/16" x 6" "aircraft drills" from any MRO or tooling distributor such as Travers Tool or https://www.mscdirect.com . Something like a 1/8" bradpoint would go a lot faster and might be easier to guide.

[Brian Evans]

Presuming it's an old Kay or something non-invaluable like that, and you want to be able to play it, I might cut the neck off and make a new one, or cut it off and convert to a two bolt butt joint type neck.

[Peter Wilcox]

Presuming it's an old Kay or something non-invaluable like that, and you want to be able to play it, I might cut the neck off and make a new one, or cut it off and convert to a two bolt butt joint type neck.

Like this: http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier ... eset1.html

[Mike Spector]

If the inlays don't mean a lot to you, I would build a simple sled to fit around the neck and take a router to the fingerboard. Once off, install the rods or whatever.

[Dave Teeter]

Thanks to all for your helpful replies. I'll see what happens.