Neck Joint let go.

[DalmerM]

Last month I walked into the living room and noticed the neck had separated from the body of my cheap Cremona China bass fiddle that I have had for about 10 years. The glue joint just give away and it just pulled straight out of the pocket. I had always assumed this would be a dovetail joint, but on this bass it was a pretty much just a square butt joint and not a very tight one at that. Very little side to side reinforcement. I was afraid a simple re-glue would not be strong enough. I used hot hide glued to reinstall the neck back in last week. I decided to pin the neck into the end block with 6 wooden dowels to strengthen the joint as there was very little wood in the sides to support the neck and that had to be shimmed. I also notice 3 different locations around the top that had to be re-glued. After about a week of curing I Strung up my bass and tuned it up to standard last week. Knock on PLYwood, the neck seems to be holding. Strings and everything stopped stretching settling in after a couple days and it has held tune for the last several days now without moving. I think I may have done something right. Hope it holds for another 10 years. I understand these China basses are notorious for coming apart.