Neck repair.......again.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dogbreath
  • Start date Start date
Dogbreath

Dogbreath

Im an ex-spurt
So a friend gave me an Epi LP set neck with a wasted headstock and broken neck.

It was bad. The headstock itself was broken in half with the other half missing. So I made and shaped the other half and set it with 2 roll pins and some Tite Bond glue.

Where the top of the truss rod is...is where the neck was broke. I used the Tite bond again and it held for about a year. When my daughter knocked it over, it snapped in the same place.

When I started this, it was all a little to no money venture. Now I'm pondering 2 things...

#1...Is there a stronger glue available than the Tite Bond? I used the "original" formula cuz some guitar tech dudes said to. :D

#2...Would an Epi LP be worth it to go thru the tediousness (imo) of replacing the neck. I read about what to do with replacing a set neck and it looks like a pita...

When it was together, it played very well, stayed in tune, and was an all around good sounding, playing guitar.

Worth it for the neck replacement or just gob some more glue on it.

???
 
Pictures would help.

Tite bond original is pretty much industry standard these days. Some guys use other brands that have no yellowing. They arn't stronger and no more solid. Make sure it's "original" you use and not some of the other titebond glues which are not good for guitar building. Your only other option is what I use for repairs like that and thats a good quality hide glue. That takes a bit more expertise and care so I'd steer clear if your not confident and haven't used it before.

The real secret is getting good wood on wood contact and clamping up nice and tight, but not too much pressure. If you do that the bond is every bit as strong as the wood itself. You need to have all the dirt and oil out of the break and work in a dry and warm room. If there is and splinters or wood missing that needs to be taken care of as well.

Chuck up some pics and I'll advise on the best way forward as I see it.
 
Thanks man...I was hoping you'd chime in here. :D

Yeah...the "Original" is the stuff I've got.

Guess I should've thought of that before but I'll get some pics up tonite when I get home.

Peace......Kel
 
I thought I just need my specs...
no...the pics really are that shiite.. :D
 

Attachments

  • 014.webp
    014.webp
    29.3 KB · Views: 71
  • 013.webp
    013.webp
    30 KB · Views: 71
As you say the pics are not the best.

The main problem you have now is that that break is now full of titebond. Titebond isn't easy to clean off and you need good wood on wood contact for most glues to bond well.

From what I can see you'd need to get a splice of new wood in there. Either routed out channels with inserted fillets either side of the truss rod channel or scarfed onto the break by removing the fracture and gluing in a fillet to replace what you remove, possibly both. Another thing I would do if you not bothered about the cosmetic of the finished result would be to strip the face and back of the headstock and veneer them after you've repaired the break. That would add to the strength a little. You have to be careful about the thickness of the finished headstock so the tuners still have enough post to wind the strings on.

If it was me I'd scarf joint a new headstock on and veneer the face and refinish. That's quite a bit of work but not impossible.
 
Many thanks man...

I'm not sure if I'm good enough to do all that though. :p

I'll have to give it some thought. Winter's coming and I tend to do odd jobs cuz I get bored easily so I'll look into it.

Again , thanks for your time mang.

Kel
 
muttley600 said:
As you say the pics are not the best.

The main problem you have now is that that break is now full of titebond. Titebond isn't easy to clean off and you need good wood on wood contact for most glues to bond well.

From what I can see you'd need to get a splice of new wood in there. Either routed out channels with inserted fillets either side of the truss rod channel or scarfed onto the break by removing the fracture and gluing in a fillet to replace what you remove, possibly both. Another thing I would do if you not bothered about the cosmetic of the finished result would be to strip the face and back of the headstock and veneer them after you've repaired the break. That would add to the strength a little. You have to be careful about the thickness of the finished headstock so the tuners still have enough post to wind the strings on.

If it was me I'd scarf joint a new headstock on and veneer the face and refinish. That's quite a bit of work but not impossible.
Click to expand...



Exactly, though I don't like the routed channels thing. It's just too damn hard to get them to fit perfectly, and anything other than a perfect fit isn't good enough. I also don't like the idea of scarfing on a new headstock - too much work, and you loose the decal/inlay which matters on expensive guitars (though with an epi, it's more the too much work issue).

There is a better and easier way, though. What we do with those things is to glue the peghead on, and then we take it over to our belt sander (a 6" widebelt, though I suppose you could do it on a drum sander too). You hold the neck up to the idler drum until you've removed enough wood to give you some good gluing surface. Now, this surface is curved, BUT you only have to fit one face, which you can easily see, and which is largely long grain. It is absolutely essential that you sand this cove in one pass - you need as perfect of a arc as you can get. You then fill this with a piece of wood which has matching grain direction/pattern/color, and reshape it. We do it first on one side, then the other, and sometimes we will do a third in the middle. We had one which was so bad it needed five, but that's rare.

By the time you are done, you have basically replaced all of the wood which was broken with new wood, and have good long grain gluing surfaces. In the 30+ years we've been doing this repair (and we've probably done thousands at this point - Gibsons have a habit of breaking right there), we've only had one come back which hadn't gotten hot (heat melts the glue, and the string tension pulls everything apart - it's ugly), which is an excellent record for a glue job. The big problem is it necessitates extensive refinishing, which is a PITA, and of course the repair is very expensive when we do it (a minimum of $400 these days). This is by far the easiest way I know of to do these repairs, but it's still time consuming and takes a very high degree of skill. The fit on all of the fills must be perfect, or it will never work.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
HERE'S how Frank Ford likes to do it. More labor and time consuming, but it certainly works.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light said:
HERE'S how Frank Ford likes to do it. More labor and time consuming, but it certainly works.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Click to expand...

Yeh tats just about how I go about those jobs. I charge a lot more than $400 dollars though. You can save the inlay and logo simply by deeping it on a bandsaw before veneering. I've done that on many guitars that matter. In this case probably not worth the effort.

In this case the cheapest and best solution as loga and cosmetic are not of the highest importance would be scarfing a new headstock. I could do that in half the time of the other methods but I guess it does depend on what you want to save on the job. I'd rarely consider it on a top end guitar unless there was some serious problems with the existing parts.
 
Light said:
Exactly, though I don't like the routed channels thing. It's just too damn hard to get them to fit perfectly, and anything other than a perfect fit isn't good enough. I also don't like the idea of scarfing on a new headstock - too much work, and you loose the decal/inlay which matters on expensive guitars (though with an epi, it's more the too much work issue).

There is a better and easier way, though. What we do with those things is to glue the peghead on, and then we take it over to our belt sander (a 6" widebelt, though I suppose you could do it on a drum sander too). You hold the neck up to the idler drum until you've removed enough wood to give you some good gluing surface. Now, this surface is curved, BUT you only have to fit one face, which you can easily see, and which is largely long grain. It is absolutely essential that you sand this cove in one pass - you need as perfect of a arc as you can get. You then fill this with a piece of wood which has matching grain direction/pattern/color, and reshape it. We do it first on one side, then the other, and sometimes we will do a third in the middle. We had one which was so bad it needed five, but that's rare.

By the time you are done, you have basically replaced all of the wood which was broken with new wood, and have good long grain gluing surfaces. In the 30+ years we've been doing this repair (and we've probably done thousands at this point - Gibsons have a habit of breaking right there), we've only had one come back which hadn't gotten hot (heat melts the glue, and the string tension pulls everything apart - it's ugly), which is an excellent record for a glue job. The big problem is it necessitates extensive refinishing, which is a PITA, and of course the repair is very expensive when we do it (a minimum of $400 these days). This is by far the easiest way I know of to do these repairs, but it's still time consuming and takes a very high degree of skill. The fit on all of the fills must be perfect, or it will never work.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Click to expand...

What your describing is essentially a sunken cleat yes?
 
I don't know what a scarf or a sunken cleat are but the link has pictures.

:D

Doing this kind of work seems like fun. I've done a couple of repairs that worked ok...meaning they haven't come apart yet...:p but as I checked out some sites about guitar building and repair it seems the tools are what kicks ya in the wallet.

I'm gonna check the pics and see if it's something I can do.

Many thanks gentlemen...

Kel
 
Just out of curiosity, are there places where you can buy...say just the head or the head with a couple of inches of the neck for repairs like this?

Warmoth has stuff but it seemed like I'd have to replace the whole neck. I'm not sure if I have the savvy or tools to replace a set neck.

??
 
Dogbreath said:
Just out of curiosity, are there places where you can buy...say just the head or the head with a couple of inches of the neck for repairs like this?

Warmoth has stuff but it seemed like I'd have to replace the whole neck. I'm not sure if I have the savvy or tools to replace a set neck.

??
Click to expand...

You can't buy just the headstock you'd need to cut it yourself from matching stock timber. Tools is a matter of getting them as you need them or using what you have to best advantage. I can't think of any luthier specific tools for the job your thinking of but as always buy the very best tools you can afford if you need to get any and learn to sharpen, maintain and use them correctly.

Replacing the whole neck is an option but you'd need to do some homework on the geometry involved and removing a set neck correctly involves just as much work as repairing what you have.

Although this guitar may never be a classic I have an ethic that requires that I leave as much of the original instrument as possible intact. A repair to the headstock would be the first choice and scarfing a new neck my second choice. As I said though with this guitar your unlikely to devalue a future classic. Your call.
 
I checked into replacing the whole neck when this was first given to me. Quite a job, me thinks. That's what lead me in the direction of repairing it.

I'm pretty sure I'm just going to repair it again. It played really nice, had a good sound and I think it might be worth it. Not a future classic...true...but nice nonetheless.

Besides, my wife won't let me buy any more guitars. BUT she didn't say anything about another bass. :D
 
Dogbreath said:
I don't know what a scarf or a sunken cleat are but the link has pictures.

:D


Kel
Click to expand...

Just for the record a scarf joint is one in which two flat surfaces are joined by gluing together at an angle greater than 45 degrees usually a lot more. The Benefit is that you have a larger glue surfaces to joint and you avoid end grain in the joint. A Butt joint is when they are just offered up to each other.

A cleat is a method of supporting a joint, usually a butt joint by way of adding another piece of wood overlapping the joint. You see them a lot in violin family repairs inside the box to support repairs to splits and centre seam repairs. The cleat would usually have the grain running at right angles to the repair. In the scenario light outlines probably not. If the cleat is hidden it would always be wise to do so.
 
ahhh...

it looks like a cleat repair in the link that Light put up then, huh?

I think with a little patience and work, I could do that. Cool.

Much thanks gents.

Kel
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top