mojoh Posted October 28, 2005 Report Share Posted October 28, 2005 As you can see from the picture below, my new Morris guitar didn't manage to make it back from Japan in one piece: Click here for more photos As far as I can see, no splinters have fallen off it and it looks like the two pieces will fit back together pretty tightly. I've never done much guitar repair before, but I've read up on fixing this on the internet. My main question is, do you think I'd get away with just gluing this back up, or do I need to put in splints or a back strap or something. I'm not too bothered about how it looks at the end but I would like it to end up reasonably strong. Many thanks for any advice. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southpa Posted October 28, 2005 Report Share Posted October 28, 2005 (edited) Looks like mahogany. I would fit the pieces together temporarily and cut 1 slot in the front between the tuners, about 3/8" wide, 1" long and 1/4" to 3/8" deep. Make sure the slot is right in the middle of the fracture. Make two more slots of the same size, evenly spaced on the back but positioned so that they contact as much wood on both pieces as possible, your call. Then make 3 hardwood "keyed-in" plugs that will fit snugly in the slots and sit higher than the surrounding wood surfaces. Test fit everything to make sure all wood faces contact like they should. Then glue and assemble / clamp it all together. Wait 24 hrs and then sand the plugs flush. The hardest part will be having to work out a good clamping method to ensure the joint doesn't slip. Edited October 28, 2005 by Southpa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Setch Posted October 28, 2005 Report Share Posted October 28, 2005 Spline would be overkill, IMO. Plenty of contact area, very little end grain to glue, and no sign of lost material - simply applying plenty of titebond (or even better, hot hide glue) and clamping tightly will result in a stronger joint than the original. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted October 29, 2005 Report Share Posted October 29, 2005 I'll second the second opinion. A properly done glue joint is stronger than the wood. Cutting a spline in will, in my opinion, weaken the joint. I would dry fit it, and while it's together drill two holes the size of a small finishing nail. Glue it up, put the nails in to maintain the alignment, and clamp 'er up. I'd use a couple of spring clamps. and let it set up for a day or so. The teeny holes are easy to hide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegarehanman Posted October 29, 2005 Report Share Posted October 29, 2005 The bonus of just gluing it up(as opposed to adding splines) is that you can get away w/o a refinish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted October 29, 2005 Report Share Posted October 29, 2005 i disagree. The grain direction is too steep, and a spice would be used if it came into my shop, and i HATE splicing guitars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
x189player Posted October 29, 2005 Report Share Posted October 29, 2005 You should use gorilla glue (urethane glue). It's ideal for neck and headstock repairs. The key thing is getting all the pieces to fit back together correctly, so that the grains mesh back together. Then wet the surfaces, apply teh glue and use tape to hold it together correctly. Should be no problem. Neck and headstock breaks seem awful but really they're a common repair, many great vintage guitars have them (what percentage of old gibsons?) so don't panic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted October 29, 2005 Report Share Posted October 29, 2005 I'm gonna risk the wrath of the gods here and say that gorilla glue is a terrible choice for this kind of repair. I've found it to be a terrible choice for a lot of things. It is good for stuff that's going to have water exposure and not a whole lot else. It dosen't have the shear strength of a good yellow, white or hide glue, and is a gooey, nasty mess to work with. It will gap fill by bubbling up, but then it loses a whole lot of it's strength. They do have great looking advertising, and every hardware store and Big Box Mart pushes the stuff, but it just isn't as good a woodworking glue as Titebond et al. You also can't undo it if you need to. Heat or Deglue-Goo will easily unglue yelow or white glues, but nothing will unglue polyurethane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ansil Posted October 29, 2005 Report Share Posted October 29, 2005 not that i disagree with you in this instance. but in a jam i have found g glue to be quite reliable. all i had was G Glue and i glued the neck back on my acoustic. No problems out of it for three years. but again i would still rather have hide glue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegarehanman Posted October 29, 2005 Report Share Posted October 29, 2005 I've had a lot of experience with gorilla glue. If you trim the expanded glue away from the seems, you greatly reduce its strength. I would also advise against it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted October 30, 2005 Report Share Posted October 30, 2005 G glue really really sux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiggz Posted October 30, 2005 Report Share Posted October 30, 2005 (edited) gorilla glue as u said is a urethane glue, but is only good for glueing shoes rubber and other plastics that are non-porus. The way white, yellow and hide glue works is the glue is dissolved in a solvent (water), and the polymers get sucked into the crevases cracks and pores of the material being glued as the solvent evaporates. urethane glue works on the same principle, but the solvent is acetone, and it evaporates a hell of a lot faster, and that doesnt give the molecules enough time to be sucked in the material. Also triming the excess away from the glue shouldnt make a difference, as the excess isnt attaching the surface. my 2c, luke edit: Doc i beg to differ you can separate a g glue joint, if you apply acetone to the glue joint... well soak the joint in it, it will come apart fairly easily. Edited October 30, 2005 by where's the beef??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegarehanman Posted October 30, 2005 Report Share Posted October 30, 2005 And there you have it folks...the mechanics behind glue. The little tid bit about trimming away excess is something I found out in high school, while making toothpick bridges. The parts that expand actually do contact the part around the outside edge some bit. It could just be a fluke though. One way or another, obviously gorilla glue is not the way to go here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wyldbil Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 I disagree with the Gorilla Glue bashers. I have done three headstocks with it that have turned out aces. One of these had several large splinters that I had to "jigsaw puzzle" back together before actually reattaching. That guitar has been going strong under hard use since 2001. Another one is a mahogany"banana" stock that was in two pieces. Guess what? Good as new. The main key with Gorilla Glue is C-A-R-E-F-U-L clamping to make the expansion squeeze out and not push the pieces apart, and because once it's set it AIN'T comin' back apart. Besides, once you reset a 'stock, why in the blue bloody blazes would you WANT to undo it? That's my experience. Your mileage may vary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1576 Posted November 3, 2005 Report Share Posted November 3, 2005 As has been said, there looks like plenty of contact area but it looks really short-grained. My choice of adhesive would be titebond. In order to minimise slip I would dry fit the joint and drill two 2mm holes in areas where there is plenty of beef on both parts. In the UK our cocktail sticks ( I believe you call them toothpicks happen to be exactly 2mm in diameter. Spread enough glue onto each part and fit together, placing the cocktail sticks into the holes at the same time, and clamp the joint as tightly as possible. The cocktail sticks prevent the joint from slipping, and fill the holes simultaneously. Clean up the excess glue while wet, and after the joint has cured, use wet n dry paper to flat the area in prep for refinishing (you wont get away with not refinishing unless you're not too fussy about detail). Fortunately, from the looks of the pic, the colour is black so it should only need a very wuick blow in with a colour gun or airbrush before final coats of lacquer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattia Posted November 3, 2005 Report Share Posted November 3, 2005 I'd say titebond or hot hide if the gap's tight, epoxy otherwise. Re: PU glues, they work just fine on woods, and many are formulated for woods. The ones I find here actually have longer working times than yellow glues, but once they start setting up, and foaming, you really, really, really need to clamps TIGHT, because they expand, and the foam? Absolutely no strength whatsoever. I don't think poly glues cure purely by evaporation; there's some catalyzed reaction going on there, ergo the foaming and expansion. By comparison, yellow glues shrink when drying, and hide glue immediatly sucks pieces together more strongly than before (high initial tack). I use PU glues when gluing dissimilar materials that never need to come apart, ie carbon fibre rods. I find it marginally less messy (and less hassle) than epoxy (no mixing) for this purpose; acetone wipes off the excess nicely, and the set up foam is pretty easily chiseled away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stiffy Posted November 17, 2005 Report Share Posted November 17, 2005 As you can see from the picture below, my new Morris guitar didn't manage to make it back from Japan in one piece: Click here for more photos As far as I can see, no splinters have fallen off it and it looks like the two pieces will fit back together pretty tightly. I've never done much guitar repair before, but I've read up on fixing this on the internet. My main question is, do you think I'd get away with just gluing this back up, or do I need to put in splints or a back strap or something. I'm not too bothered about how it looks at the end but I would like it to end up reasonably strong. Many thanks for any advice. John ← Your new guitar from Japan? Was it shipped to you from a Japanese dealer? If so send it back and get a refund. Did you buy it there and the luggage handlers busted it up? If so demand to be compansated. You can glue it, but is not going to fix the structural damaged done to it. Thats like a Dr. putting a bandaide on Bobbit's amputated wiener after Lorainna had already sliced the little willy off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattia Posted November 17, 2005 Report Share Posted November 17, 2005 Your new guitar from Japan? Was it shipped to you from a Japanese dealer? If so send it back and get a refund. Did you buy it there and the luggage handlers busted it up? If so demand to be compansated. If the shipping company was at fault, and everything was packaged according to regs, yes, you've got a point. If the luggage handlers busted it up...tough. The vast majority of airlines have severly restricted liability claims on checked (and/or unchecked) luggage, particularly resulting from damage to expensive and/or fragile goods (guitars qualify as both), so check with the airline. Some things you can pay a surcharge for to cover, but better yet, simply get travel insurance that has a provision for lost and/or damaged luggage en-route. Don't ever count on airlines for monetary comp, since they've got their butts well covered. Read any and all airline baggage liability forms, check the back of your last airline ticket stub/luggage tag. Random selection from an airline website: "For most international travel to which the Warsaw Convention applies (including domestic portions of international travel), Continental's liability is approximately $9.07 per pound up to $640 maximum per bag for checked baggage and $400 per customer for unchecked baggage. For most international travel to which the Montreal Convention applies (including domestic portions of international travel), Continental's liability is approximately $1,375 maximum per customer for checked and unchecked baggage. When checking baggage for a flight, a customer may declare a higher value than the maximum limit of liability. See Excess Valuation for additional details. Continental shall not be liable for loss, damage or delay in delivery of high value, fragile or perishable items. In addition, declaration of higher value does not apply to the above items. See Fragile and Perishable Items for detailed listings of exclusionary items." Make of that what you will. You can glue it, but is not going to fix the structural damaged done to it. Thats like a Dr. putting a bandaide on Bobbit's amputated wiener after Lorainna had already sliced the little willy off. ← Now that's just nonsense. A properly repaired headstock can be just as strong as a never-been-broken one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stiffy Posted November 18, 2005 Report Share Posted November 18, 2005 Your new guitar from Japan? Was it shipped to you from a Japanese dealer? If so send it back and get a refund. Did you buy it there and the luggage handlers busted it up? If so demand to be compansated. If the shipping company was at fault, and everything was packaged according to regs, yes, you've got a point. If the luggage handlers busted it up...tough. The vast majority of airlines have severly restricted liability claims on checked (and/or unchecked) luggage, particularly resulting from damage to expensive and/or fragile goods (guitars qualify as both), so check with the airline. Some things you can pay a surcharge for to cover, but better yet, simply get travel insurance that has a provision for lost and/or damaged luggage en-route.I'm so sorry bad wording on my part. Travel insurance yeah that's the ticket. I take it you had no coverage from dealer nor travel. Good luck gluing it. I hate to be such a jackass, but I still don't think it will be the same cosmetically nor sound wise if it was not broken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxi450 Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 i had almost the same break. my guitar fell off its stand and the head just snapped off. i used epoxy and some wooden shewers to fix it , just like 1576 said . it work'd perfect i laid some fiberglass over it to fill in any places were the wood was missing. let it all harden and strung her up and sounds just like the day i got her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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