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Anonymous
Fix a broken guitar by myself 2016-11-26 18:05:54 Post No. 1089957
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Fix a broken guitar by myself 2016-11-26 18:05:54 Post No. 1089957
[Report] Image search: [Google]
Hello /diy/, this is my first time posting on this board, I hope I'm not breaking any rules.
Some time ago I used to strum my father's guitar every so often. It wasn't a particularly fine guitar, it was the very cheap kind one buys to start learning how to play, but since it was a gift his late father made him when he was young, he somewhat cared about it. Anyways, a day I foolishly placed the guitar standing on a wall, and right when I turned away, it fell on the ground and the result is what you can see in the picture.
The head separated completely from the fingerboard, although it didn't snap the way I would have expected (a coarse, splintery mess). Instead, at first glance it seems that it came apart in a quite clean way, so I'm hoping I could manage to fix it by simply applying the proper glue and the right amount of pressure (and obviously sanding it and plastering it before).
I'm not sure if I want to hand it to a luthier, because the guitar is pretty battered in other points and I'm afraid he would insist on revamping it totally (e.g. by stripping it and then painting it with some fancy coating) or substituting the whole fretboard, both of which would surely make me spend a lot more than the original guitar's value. Anyways, since I want to give it to my father for Christmas, I could afford spending a bit on it (still not too much, 50€ is my maximum budget, poorfag here).
tl;dr/recap: do you think it's feasible to fix this guitar by myself? Will it snap back in two pieces once I tighten the strings? Note that my main concern for now is to make it usable again, I don't really care at this moment if it's not gonna be a spotless job.
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More pictures of the broken guitar.
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>>1089957
Glue and biscuits after scraping it smooth would be my preference. You could also spline it together.
Unless you have significant experience with joinery you're more likely to do more harm than good.
Take it to a proffesional and have them give you a quote. Sure they'll try and upsell you, thats how they make money. Just tell him
>"no thanks, just repair the neck. I only really have it for the sentimental value, not for playing."
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>>1089959
For the record, that was just a glued butt-joint there.
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>>1089957
I've done dozens of headstock repairs (pic related). It looks like it broke right at the scarf joint. It should be a fairly easy repair.
Clean out any old glue residue with a damp cloth. Use regular wood glue (aliphatic resin). Don't use the water resistant/proof shit. Make sure you get enough glue into the break. You can thin the glue with a few drops of water to make sure it gets all the way under the fingerboard.
The way you clamp it is important, and you should always test clamp it before you apply any glue. For a break like that, you're going to need to use a strap clamp from the headstock down to the tail of the guitar. You'll need to make some cauls for the back of the neck and use some cam or jorgensen style clamps for the neck/fingerboard area. You need to clamp it tight. You want to squeeze out as much of that glue as possible, wiping it up with a damp cloth as you go. It's going to be a bit of a balancing act between the clamps on the neck and the strap clamp. If you wedge the headstock into the joint too much with the strap the fingerboard will try to lift. You'll see.
On second thought, for someone that has never done a headstock repair, this one could be tricky.
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>>1089993
This was a neck reset, but the strap clamp positioning would be the same for yours.
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Thank you very, very much for the info. I'm not a native English speaker nor a diy expert, so I'm going to mull over what both of you said for a while.
At first glance, this seems like something bigger than I can handle (the photos frightened me desu), so maybe for a start I'll contact a guitar technician and ask for an estimate. What figure am I to expect reasonably?
By the way,
>>1089990
>that was just a glued butt-joint there
Do you think so? I can't see any trace of glue on the wood. Both faces feel and seem like raw wood. This kinda makes me doubt that by coincidence the wood could have broken that way, and that originally the headstock may have formed a single piece with the tail. Is that plausible?
and
>>1089988
>Glue and biscuits
biscuits?
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>>1090023
I'm pretty sure it was a scarf joint. A break wouldn't be so uniform. The white stuff is glue. Cheap glue. Biscuits or splines would be overkill in my opinion. I would charge 200usd for that repair.
>>1089993 me
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>>1090027
You're right, I juxtaposed the two pieces and the veining doesn't match.
>I would charge 200usd for that repair
I realize it must be a time consuming and delicate work, but if someone would ask that much I would definitely give it a try and fix it by myself. It just doesn't make sense to spend four times its value (just checked the price of the "modern" version of this guitar, which looks 100% the same: 45€) just to have the two pieces bound back together.
I think I'll study a bit more thoroughly the topic, thank you for your directions!
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>>1090043
No problem. I'll monitor this thread if you have any more questions. Good luck
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>>1090023
This guy
>>1090027
Is correct, guitar headstocks that angle away from the fingerboard such as classical guitars and gibsons and such are typically made using a scarf joint to join it to the neck. 'flat' head stock guitars like Fenders which don't angle away, typically don't. The angle is what necessitates the little pieces that hold the strings down going into the nut on Fenders, and why their not present on angled head stock guitars.
Honestly, it shouldn't be horrible to fix, and a there's plenty of different wood-glues that are suitable for guitars. Make sure you have enough clamps for it, standard woodworking stuff.
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Thread images: 6