Electric guitar neck crack repair

Maybe, with more pictures, I could give better guidance, but really, all the answers can best be answered in the bench. Find a good repair shop and get an estimate. It's the best choice. I'm looking at the picture and it appears to me the the wood grain is not oriented the same as a quarter sawn neck, thus indicating to me that the strength and stiffness of the neck have probably never been optimal and the orientation of the grain might be the reason the neck is beginning to fail.

Add to that fact, the condition of the neck having be weakened further by the position of the holes drilled to facilitate the locking mechanism, and I can imagine why it might fail. If it were my guitar, I would choose to replace it with a better quality neck, preferably quarter sawn and drilled out by someone with experience installing locking mechanisms.

I'd just consider it an upgrade to my instrument. It almost looks like wood grain or a joint between two different pieces of wood.

The real issue might be if the locking bolts were tightened too much? It is strange that a 20 yo guitar with no issues would do this.

It is definitely worth taking to a luthier and pricing what it would cost to fix. If the wood split along the grain a fix should be easy.

I snapped the head stock off a Les Paul copy I made in high school and the brake was so clean that the grain lined up. Epoxy and a clamp and good as new though I'm not a luthier. Looking at the grain and wood fiber relative to the line of the neck, I would conclude that the cracks have been probably caused by a significant impact, such as the instrument falling backwards, perhaps a foot or two.

Another possibility is that the wood has always been weak along the grain in those places, and has finally come apart after a long time, perhaps after an otherwise unremarkable impact, or perhaps even because of the continuous pull of the strings in the opposite direction. But the latter seems less likely, I still think that some kind of impact is the most likely cause.

If the instrument is not particularly valuable or critically important to you, I'd say that it would not be unreasonable to wait and see what happens. Put some kind of mark at the end of the crack. If the crack ever extends beyond that, it's likely to keep getting worse, and a trip to the luthier will be inevitable, and sooner will be better than later. If the cracks don't expand even if you continue using the instrument, it's likely nothing further will happen. I accidentally broke the headstock of my ukelele, yet it is still barely intact.

SO should I just take them out then glue and put them back or is it safe to leave them there? Reply 3 years ago. I agree with JordanD Take all the strings off the tuners so they strings are out of your way while you are working on it. Take off the two tuners at the break - and the other two tuners as well if the break extends up into their area.

From here you can take two paths to keep the tuner holes clear: 1. That should probably take care of any issues with clogging up the tuner hole. After the glue has dried, you could use an appropriate size drill bit to clean out the hole - but that's dangerous because the drill might end up migrating to one side of the hole or the other an make the hole bigger.

But on the flip side, you could manually use a drill bit to finish up after you use the Q-Tip on the wet glue just to make things a little more tidy. I did a video on a repair to a Ukelele bridge a while back that you might find helpful as well: Let us know how it turns out! I know this comment is two years old but I'm here and so I believe others will also read this, My suggestion here is if the holes do get some glue in for whatever reason, thereby plugging them slighltly, use a reamer rather than a drill bit.

It is much safer way to open the hole. I just replaced the tuners on my Ibanez Mikro bass. Problem was they were slighlt larger than the holes the tuning pegs go through. One of my neihghbors told me to go by and I showed him the bass. He suggested using a reamer rather than a bit. Problem was that he did not have a reamer that big. It worked but I tell ya - A reamer would have been key to doing that work properly and I wish I hadn't been so impatient.

Great suggestion! I agree a drill bit can get too aggressive and the reamer is a better solution. Thanks for the tip! Take them out, just keep track of the pieces so you don't lose them. If they get glued they may not turn.

Thanks for info. I did nearly this exact repair on a Epi Dot almost 7 years ago. Still stringing and playing it. There are a couple of differences: It was not completely separated since it had a lot of wood fibers connecting both pieces, and could be flexed back and forth. So it lined up perfectly, with yellow wood glue used, and then clamped for 5 days. I smoothed it as much as possible and advertised it recently, 7 years later. Lots of naysayers. Any ideas on how to get buyers to understand that it is still a good guitar regardless of the repair?

I hear what you're saying about people not understanding about these repairs. I can see that the value of the guitar would go down, but it's still just as playable and durable.

Can anyone tell me if I should add screws to my headstock after gluing it back onto the neck for further reinforcements? I would suggest you not do that. The glue is more than sufficient to hold the repair. If the repair is done properly, the glue will not fail. It was even demonstrated in this article because the headstock had broken off and was repaired before.

That 1st repair glue joint held up perfectly even when exposed to the same forces that caused the neck to break in a different place the 2nd time. And if the guitar gets knocked over again and the headstock breaks off, I feel confident that the break would occur at a different spot than the first two places although probably pretty close to the same area.

Question 1 year ago. Hi I was just wondering if this could be done with a not as clean break? My replica Gibson sg the legacy ones made by Tokia head came clean off at Woodford and I do t have the money to get it repaired, the break is very splintered and uneven. Sounds like a challenge! Can you post any pictures? That would help me or others make some suggestions. The bottom line is that just about ANY broken neck can be fixed and the guitar will be just as playable as before if done correctly.

Gibson necks break off all the time and it's a routine fix. Reply 2 years ago. You must be talking about their crafts glue we used in kindergarten. As I posted above, I used Elmer's top grade wood glue to great success, still playing guitar after 7 years. I do agree that Titebond would be a good alternative for the squeamish builders.

I know people will swear by one glue and swear AT another. But no one ever offers any evidence. Merch Shop. Members Current visitors. Log in Register. Search only containers. Search titles only.

Search Advanced search…. New posts. Search forums. Log in. Change style. Contact us. Close Menu. Click Here. Home Forums Instruments Guitars in General. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Worth repairing neck pocket cracks? Messages 2, It was purchased new, but shipped in a cardboard box with not nearly enough protection.

It appears based on the headstock damage and the box damage that the guitar was dropped on it's head, which transferred the shock directly into the headstock. The guitar was an inexpensive guitar and the vendor has shipped me a replacement and not asked for the old one back.

In that case, it may be best not to do anything to it for the time being - in case they send you message to return the old one after the replacement has been received.

Jack Daniels Silver Supporting Member. Not to beat up on Tony, as he is a good guy: but its important to use the right glue. Many folks try to use CA as it has a good wicking action but it does not bond wood that well.

Those are wood glues. This repair requires wood glue. Opening up the crack enough to get the glue into the joint is key. Terry McInturff 45th Anniversary of guitar building!

Gold Supporting Member. Possible good news: From the photos it appears to me that there's a decent chance that those are finish cracks only. And for gluing, art copywrite Terence van Go lol. Jack Daniels said:. Hot hide would be a good choice as it does wick to some extent. No need for dowels, Splines or anything else. Lots of glue surface there if you can get the glue in. Tony Done said:. I discussed this with Bryan Kimsey, a well know acoustic repairer, on another forum. However, he also noted that he would likely use hot hide glue, because he did not think that Titebond would wick into the crack.

He also advised great care in opening the crack, he apparently had a headstock come off in his hands doing that. Terry McInturff said:. A very good example is "Titebond" glue. Many are unaware that there are multiple formulations of "Titebond", each of which have specific working characteristics, and are formulations not available to the general public.

As an example, in my experience the very best general-purpose aliphatic resin glue for guitar making is Titebond 50, which is not an off-the-shelf item.