Broken Neck Repair With Pics

[gordon_39422]

Hey guys.. One of my students set his guitar on his bed one night and forgot about it... He had taken a shower and while getting dressed, he sat down on it... The headstock broke COMPLETLEY off... Well, he was gonna trash it, so I got it and started repairing it... This is what I have so far...

Well, I will tell you about it first... The pics arent ready yet...

I used Tight Bond II to reattach the headstock, and kept it secured with a C-clamp... I tried another suggestion of using rubber strips wrapped around the joint to hold pressure, but it wasnt strong enough.. It would have worked for the actuall attachment part, but I wanted to make sure the joint was VERY TIGHT, to keep from having a dead spot that would absorb resonance, thereby decreasing the sustain....

After that was done, I glued some of the small shards in place.. luckily, all the binding was present, so that will make the finishing job easier...

This past Sunday, I applied some epoxy to fill in the cracks... At this point, the epoxy is still curing, and I will update as I make progress...

Any comments or suggestions will certainly be appreciated... The next post will have the pics...

Thanks for looking,
Allen

 

[Kommerzbassist]

Re: Broken Neck Repair

Re: Broken Neck Repair

I'm very curious about how this is going to sound... please post clips too... what kind of guitar is it?

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Broken Neck Repair

Re: Broken Neck Repair

Here are the pics in chronological order with the repair process. Enjoy!

Again, any feedback, advice, or comments are welcome... This is the first MAJOR repair I have done, so it has been a learning process. I would certainly appreciate input from the more experienced reapirmen/women here!

Thanks again for looking,
Allen

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

The moral of the story is: if you're clumsy and forgetful (like me), play a Fender!

 

[Bludave]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

or.........................................Keep your guitar in the case!

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

LOL... I have Wall Hangers and a few guitar stands to prevent this... but I might be able to get this off him for little or nothing....

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

I've repaired 2 Epiphones that were broken at the headstock as well... Thank god they were not real Gibsons.... But i have seen a few really nice new acoustic and Electric guitars that were worth over $2000 have bad accidents... it happens.

I like the guy that came into the local store with a Ibanez guitar case with a car tire mark down the center.... the local store says people in a rush loading gear sometimes forget that they left their guitar behind the car and back over them!

WhoFan

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

Here is a repair I did when my Gibson just decided to crack... this was NOT a result of negligence! When doing research for repairs, I learned that this is actually a shockingly common characteristic of Gibson and Epi's... Weird! i havent yet swallowed fear enough to attmpt the finish on the Gibson. It doesnt bother me as much about the finish nearly as badly as it will if I dont get the stain close to original! The Gibson repair was similar to the ESP repair, but since the neck didnt completly detach, I drilled a hole and pressed a wooden dowel in for support!

The epoxy is still hardening but, once it is done, I will post pics for the updates....

 

[APB_4]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

How the hell do you get a guitar to float like that in the 5th pic down!?!?!?

 

[theodie]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

I ahve a playing V that I did this kind of repair on. It was much harded than usual because someone before me already tried to repair it. It came out well after I worked my magic on it though.

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

:laugh2:

How the hell do you get a guitar to float like that in the 5th pic down!?!?!?

I didn' t realize how much of an optical illusion that was until you pointed it out! Once I saw what you wre talking about, I LMAO!! :laugh2: There is another can of the 405 behind the guitar. The guitar is resting on it by the back cavity, so it has three points of contact holding it still... The purpose of that pic was to help with a step-by-step repair process for other, should this work out. But my dad recommended to me that I should send West System a copy of the pic.... Apparently they post home projects as such... Wouldn't be a bad way to get some publicity!

How is the speaker project going, btw?

Later,
Allen

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

Being a Who fan i have kept a close eye on the guitars of Pete Townshend... Funny how all his favourite guitars have been broken and repaired..... His Number 1 Les Paul Deluxe that you can see him throwing around in the end of WGFA at the closing of the Kids Are Alright movie was repaired..... then smashed really well in Brighton 1979... the neck was glued back together and he has hung onto it to this day... It's the only LP he has left from the 70's. Most have been sold at auctions or given away.

One of his favourite studio guitars is a Gretch that he smashed on Top Of The Pops in 1973.. They glued it back together and he uses still.

He got really mad in the studio oneday and flew into a child like rage, picked up 2 new acoustics and smashed them together... body was saved from one amd the neck was saved from the other.... it's one of his favourite acoustics to play and record!

It's kind of funny but there is a lot of PT guitars out there bought at auction and the guitars have been repaired many times before the final smashing did it in. A lot of his guitars that took a pounding lived to be smashed another day. At one NY 1974 Who Concert Pete and Moon went on a rampage when they played a bad show and Moon helped Pete smash 4 Les Pauls, his Hiwatt stacks, and moon threw his kit out into the crowd....

God i miss the days when a concert was something you never knew what was going to happen.....

WhoFan

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

I am all about stage presence and unexpected activity on the stage... BUT, I wince every time I see someone smash a perfectly good guitar for the sake of a show that will be forgotten....

Different strokes... different folks...

 

[beandip]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

Well, that's one heavy duty repair. I dont think it'll be breaking again. Now, sand all that junk down, refinish it, and play the thing!

 

[APB_4]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

:laugh2:

I didn' t realize how much of an optical illusion that was until you pointed it out! Once I saw what you wre talking about, I LMAO!! :laugh2: There is another can of the 405 behind the guitar. The guitar is resting on it by the back cavity, so it has three points of contact holding it still... The purpose of that pic was to help with a step-by-step repair process for other, should this work out. But my dad recommended to me that I should send West System a copy of the pic.... Apparently they post home projects as such... Wouldn't be a bad way to get some publicity!

How is the speaker project going, btw?

Later,
Allen

Ahh the magician revealed his secrets. lol

I think I've got the speaker stuff sorted MikeS and JaksonMIA really helped and I found this article on the Celestion site http://professional.celestion.com/guitar/features/drdecibel/How to replace_GB.pdf

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

Well, after 5 days of drying time, the epoxy still hasnt hardened. That is probably my fault. I was proccupied by my son shooting fireworks, so 100% of my attention wasnt directed at the mixture. Epoxy will eventually harden regardless of how poor the mix, but I havnet the patience to sit around and wait. I am anxxious to get started. As such, I am going to scrape the useless gunk off and do it again... This time, I am going to err on the side of too much hardener... After all, I am only filling cracks, not building a fiberglass form!!! LOL!!

More to follow...

 

[beandip]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

my recomendation would be to go buy a quarter inch dowl rod, and drill two holes in the neck, and two holes in the headstock, use the dowl to keep the headstock on there with some woodglue, then cover the crack up with epoxy.

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

my recomendation would be to go buy a quarter inch dowl rod, and drill two holes in the neck, and two holes in the headstock, use the dowl to keep the headstock on there with some woodglue, then cover the crack up with epoxy.

The joint has been repaired.... The use of a dowl rod is unecesary for the ESP, because the break completely separated the 2 pices... I was able to get the pressure perpindicular to the grain and alllow a VERY tight bond...

The Gibson I repaired, however did not completely break. In fact, it was still relatively in tune, just a BIG ass crack in the neck... So, I injected as much Tite bond woodglue into the joint as possible and the drilled the 1/4 dowel you see in the pics..

As I said in the last post, I probably mixed the epoxy with not enough hardener...

But thanks for recommending to do what I have already posted having done...
Great minds think alike!

Allen

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

I am all about stage presence and unexpected activity on the stage... BUT, I wince every time I see someone smash a perfectly good guitar for the sake of a show that will be forgotten....

Different strokes... different folks...

Ya i hear ya... I do too... But in Townshends case he turned it into an art forum almost.... His first guitar he broke with the early Who-(Detours, High Numbers) was an accident..... At a London Club called the Railway Hotel that had a low ceiling he broke the headstock off his guitar..... to cover it up he smashed what was left and carried on with his spare guitar... The Who's Managers saw the reaction from the crowd and asked him to keep doing it at shows and let word of mouth take the band to stardom.... It worked well.

Pete in the early 60's while at Art School tried to research why people react so shocked and amazed when someone breaks something. He found an artist that mainly broke objects for art.... He would break a lamp or something and it would be called a piece of art... very strange stuff for sure. But the idea behind art is to cause emotion of some sort. By breaking a guitar most of us would love to take care of and polish once in a while he had created a feeling of some sort... this they called art..... thats the strange and weird meaning behind Pete breaking guitars.. that is the way he told it.

In the end Pete had to stop breaking so many guitars because too many people were showing up at concerts just to see that and could care less about their music. In the 70's it was mostly out of anger at the end of a bad night..... These days he breaks the the odd strat for charity mostly... Oddly they are worth more broken then whole........ I guess some people with a lot of money feel they are works of art too....

WhoFan

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Broken Neck Repair With Pics

Ya i hear ya... I do too... But in Townshends case he turned it into an art forum almost.... His first guitar he broke with the early Who-(Detours, High Numbers) was an accident..... At a London Club called the Railway Hotel that had a low ceiling he broke the headstock off his guitar..... to cover it up he smashed what was left and carried on with his spare guitar... The Who's Managers saw the reaction from the crowd and asked him to keep doing it at shows and let word of mouth take the band to stardom.... It worked well.

Pete in the early 60's while at Art School tried to research why people react so shocked and amazed when someone breaks something. He found an artist that mainly broke objects for art.... He would break a lamp or something and it would be called a piece of art... very strange stuff for sure. But the idea behind art is to cause emotion of some sort. By breaking a guitar most of us would love to take care of and polish once in a while he had created a feeling of some sort... this they called art..... thats the strange and weird meaning behind Pete breaking guitars.. that is the way he told it.

In the end Pete had to stop breaking so many guitars because too many people were showing up at concerts just to see that and could care less about their music. In the 70's it was mostly out of anger at the end of a bad night..... These days he breaks the the odd strat for charity mostly... Oddly they are worth more broken then whole........ I guess some people with a lot of money feel they are works of art too....

WhoFan

WOW! That is pretty interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing that.. With that new perspective and knowing that he continued to reassemble the axes, I have a newfound respect for Pete in that regards!

I like The Who, but never understood the smashing until now.... It seems that many have followed suit... For instance, back in the mid-90's Garth Brooks, yeah the country singer, smashed his acoustic guitar into his rhythm guitarists acoustic guitar! WTH? I mean at least when someone is really rocking out and getting into the show, i could understand getting carried away and smashing stuff... But singing country music? I dont think so! LOL!!