Cracked Les Paul neck HELP

[Funkfingers]

Re: Cracked Les Paul neck HELP

Er, I am trying to recall where the repair failed? (I have photographs somewhere on an old external HDD.) I recall laughing about it because the wood-adhesive-wood contact area was intact. The new failure ran in parallel to the first.

My friend specifically chose cascamite because it is weatherproof - intended for boats and other outdoor applications. It is almost too good for the task.

When the headstock was repaired for the second time, a luthier used a couple of small dowels to stabilise everything. This repair has held ever since.


FWIIW, on a Gibson scale length, my friend plays nothing lighter than .011s, usually .012s.

 

[jrbowen81]

Re: Cracked Les Paul neck HELP

I've been using .011-.056 on mine for years since the first break, but I've been tuned down to C# "Standard" or Drop B pretty much the whole time too. Never a lot of tension on it.


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[Cortstratele]

Re: Cracked Les Paul neck HELP

I would take it to a luthier...


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[jrbowen81]

Re: Cracked Les Paul neck HELP

Tried the original Titebond wood glue. Used the clamping method shown in the link I shared. That allowed me to very carefully apply even, steady pressure to the headstock and slowly open up the break. The glue seemed to almost flow in on its own. I used a thin, stiff piece of plastic I cut from some toy packaging to work the glue in evenly. It turns out the break was deeper than I originally thought, because the glue was oozing into the routing around the truss rod nut. At least that showed that I had gotten the glue in as far as it would go. Once I let off the pressure on the headstock, the glue continued to spread even better, as it was squeezing out across the entire length of the crack. Once I clamped it and cleaned off the excess glue, I left it clamped for a solid 24 hours. Then I tuned it back up and checked it out. Then for the moment of truth, I did the same test as before (aka "tried to re-break it by hand) and it held solid. So far, so good.


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