About a month ago I at Guitar Center I picked up an Epiphone SG for 75 bucks 'cause it had a broken neck. The headstock was held on only by being wrapped with packing tape. I thought, what the heck, the hardware alone was worth more than 75. The neck broke because Epiphone uses such cheap quality wood (my opinion) it is a wonder they can stay in business. The neck was originally cut at an angle and the headpiece glued on as a slab. The density of the slab was more like bass wood than mahogany and got most of what little strength it had by an very thick poly finish.
Anyway I had some high quality honduran mahogany laying around and enough to make a neck. Rather than steaming the heal joint I just removed the fingerboard then used a router to route out a neck joint mortise. The new neck is a solid piece with "ears" glued to the sides to widen the headpiece. (Luthiers will know what I mean.) Since I'm not a fan of Epiphone anyway, I shaped the headpiece like a Gibson headpiece. Even though I can't inlay "Gibson" into the new headpiece (illegal), at least it will look like a guitar made by a real quality company. I inlay'ed my initial instead. I was able to reuse the finger board, truss rod, and tuners (Grovers). Only used about 6 coats of finish 'cause I don't like a lot on the necks I make. Matched the stain fairly well. Didn't turn out too bad, and play quite well. So I now have an SG to add to my collect of 50 plus instruments...
