Neck Joint

Though I try to make my guitars have a very classic look, in the case of the neck joint I favor a more modern approach. I use a glueless double mortise and tenon joint learned from Dana Bourgeois via John Mayes. There is a great deal of debate surrounding various neck joints. Many builders and players dismiss anything but a dovetail joint as being inferior tonally and just a way to make guitars faster and cheaper. I do not believe this to be the case. I have had a great deal of experience with dovetail joints and while they are indeed a solid joint I don't feel that they are critical to tone. They are certainly a lot easier and faster than the double m&t. Many great sounding guitars have been made with bolt-on necks, and many poor sounding instruments have been made with dovetails. After years of research and pondering, I have been unable to come up with a single piece of factual evidence to convince me that a dovetail joint is necessary for a great sounding guitar. Quite the opposite in fact. Between the the two styles, one has a clear and provable advantage...you can remove a bolt-on neck in mere moments without risk to the instrument! Removing a dovetail neck is expensive and takes a great deal of skill to do safely (and good on ya to those who can). Since there is a very high probability that every guitar will need a neck reset during it's lifetime it makes sense to me to make this operation as painless as possible.