Neck bolt threads wearing weak?

[Seventh Avenged]

Hey fellas,

I was wondering, and kinda worried about neck bolts on bolt-on axes.

if, say in a mahogany or alder body, if the neck bolts and holes are slowly becoming loose...

will the Toothpick and wood glue trick work? or do you have to dowel rod out the holes (i ,pst certainly hope not)?

And does this problem warrant much of a concern?

i don't take apart my guitars a lot, but i'm looking for info on what to do if/when my guitar bolts are feeling no resistance when going in.

what do you guys think? does any of this make sense?

[straycat]

Never had that problem even on a guitar I changed necks on several times.

[Bert]

Had that problem on an old 'dimas neck I bought off of ebay, the original holes were stripped out completely. I did the toothpick & glue trick and while it doesn't feel 100%, it seems to do the trick and has been holding for over a year now. I think the "correct" thing to do would be to drill the holes out and put dowels in them, then redrill. But may as well give the toothpicks a try first.

[Seventh Avenged]

thanks for the replies guys!

and its no major problem, just my paranoia, i think...

since mahogany is such a soft wood.

so nothing to worry about for the future?

[MountainDog]

Mahogany? The neck bolts pass thru the Mahogany/Alder/ect body and screw into the maple neck.

The toothpick thing works well. Sometimes though for neck screws that are larger in diameter, I found some wood stir stick things at the grocery store that are like twice the diameter of a toothpick. I just used that in a guitar last week that I just bought that had two screws that just turned with little resistance as you mention. I didn't even use glue, just stuffed that larger stick in there and clamped the screws home.