Dobro 12 string Neck Reset

In today's post I will be correcting this Dobro's high string action. Over the years guitars tend to become harder and harder to play due to the strings raising off the fingerboard. It's a natural progression over a guitars lifetime. With all the string tension, it allows the neck and body angles to change resulting in higher string action.

Measured at the 12th fret the string action measures about 9/64" on the bass side.. That kind of string action is very unplayable and very tough on the hands... I like to see the string action right around 6/64" or so on the bass side.... I will often change string height depending on a players style, so that 6/64" number is not an exact measurement by any means, but 9/64" is WAY out there.

First step is to remove the resonater parts and neck.

On this guitar, the neck is attached by two bolts located under these inlays. First I had to drill out the inlays, then later I will make new ones and fit them.

Here it is with the neck and all the other parts taken off.

This is a picture of how the neck angle is established. Attached to the neck is a long square dowel that passes through the body into the resonator cavity. In this pic you're seeing just the end of the dowel. Underneath this dowel you can see a piece of wood supporting it. After some calculations and trial and error, I was able to fit the correct thickness of wood and establish a better neck angle.

Next step was to reassemble the instrument and tune it up.

Here it is all put together..

As you can see, the string action has been decreased significantly.. It was now much more playable and would give this customer many more years of playing.