Humphery Millenium

[Per Sonnerup]

Any one who have made adjustments on a T Humphery Millenium guitar neck. It seems to be bolted on, but what then?

[Nick Dingle]

How are you trying to adjust it? Reset the neck angle? Tweak the truss rod? Got a picture?

[Per Sonnerup]

I have been asked to do a slight neck reset as the brek angle at the bridge is almost non exsistent and the player wants an even lower action. This guitar does not have a truss rod as is the case with most classical guitars. I am looking for advice from somebody who's actually unbolted and separated neck from body on this kind of guitar. Are there any hidden surprises or some special considerations to be aware of? I looks quite straight forward but I don't want to meddle around with an instrument like this.

[Mark Swanson]

Ok, well there is no such thing as a "slight" neck reset, it's like being slightly pregnant. The process is the same and just as critical no matter how much of the neck angle needs to be changed. In other words, I have had customers try to get me to charge less if "I only need a little bit more neck angle".
Classical guitars do not normally have a trussrod, nor do they usually have bolt on necks. If this guitar is a bolt-on, go ahead and take the bolts out but be aware that the fingerboard is probably glued to the top.

[Waddy Thomson]

It's a raised fingerboard, so the fingerboard is glued to the neck extension. I don't know if the neck extension is glued to the upper bout.

[Tom Sommerville]

Definitely post pictures, and include a shot of the neck, from the headstock to the bridge.

The millenium guitars were designed with the neck tilted forward so that the strings would exert more of a pull on the soundboard, somewhat in the way the strings of a harp couple with the soundboard and thus giving it a tone more like a harp.

They are distinctive instruments. I wouldn't want to do anything that might alter the tone and a conventional neck adjustment could do that. I'd recommend some research; Humphery passed a few years ago, but I'm sure somebody-- a dealer perhaps-- could give you some ideas. I think he also had a short-lived arrangement with Martin, perhaps someone there could help.

[Per Sonnerup]

Thank you for reviving this thread Tom. I actually did the reset without any advice, besides from what I got from this forum, it proved difficult to obtain any additional information. Here are some pictures, they are pretty much self-explanatory. The neck (fingerboard) extension wasn't glued to the top, so the removal was easy. I made only a slight adjustment of the neck angle, just sufficient to make the guitar playable without altering the bridge height. The only modification I had to do was to remove the heel cap and shave of half a millimeter on the neck to get the cap flush with the back.

[Tom Sommerville]

Sonnerup,

I don't think I'd have done it any different.

Nice work.

Tom