Anyone have experience with Oud neck resets?

[Guitar]

Since this is in the 'lute' family...

Have Oud in need of a reset.
It's a 1969 manufactured instrument from a premier maker (Garabed Der Bedrossian) and worth four figures once restored, so worth the effort to set it right again. (bought from some guy as a "strange foreign mandolin" )

There is embellishment *everywhere* on the bowl and neck and I have no idea what kind of neck joinery is involved. The fingerboard itself involves some pretty inlay, so a wedge is a last-resort kind of thing.



This guy:
http://www.droud.com/neckreset.html
Gives a broad primer, but I'm not entirely sure what he's doing there, since I've never worked with one of these before.

Anyone have any ideas how this process works?

[Marcus Dominelli]

I made an oud last summer, but my experience with repairing them is fairly limited. It seems like many old, and not so old ouds need neck resets.
It could be an easy or difficult job depending on how the neck is attached. I built mine with a rod that anchors the neck firmly into the neck block, so that the only way it'll move is if through distortion of the bowl.
If yours is put on with dowels, like most seem to be, then the neck re-set should not be too difficult. I like the inlay work in that one.
Good luck.

Dominelli Guitars

[Marcus Dominelli]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. You should probably string it up to tension and see how much the neck is out. It's one thing to put a straight edge on it unstrung, and another thing entirely to string it up and then measure. Under tension is the only really good way. You probably don't want to have to re-set the neck twice!!!