Critical Condition

[ShreddyKrueger]

Well, last night i was playing my guitar, and i heard a slight 'crack.' just a small one. then BAM!!! the neck pocket snaps down the middle. not parallel to any side or anything, but through the body. it's kinda hard to explain. I need to fix this. is it possible, ro will it be weaker. I swear i almost cried when it happened. I'm pretty sure it's because of the humidity in my basement, or maybe the wood is really porus. or both, i dunno.

Edited September 24, 2004 by ShreddyKrueger

[crafty]

RIP to Indian Larry and your guitar.

It all depends on where the crack is, how deep it goes, and what kind of wood you have, my friend.

What kind of setup is it? Set-neck or bolt-on? What kind of finish does it have?

[Lex Luthier]

A picture would REALLY help.

[RAI6]

The neck pocket snaps down the middle.

Through the body. it's kinda hard to explain.

It almost sounds like your body is separating at the center glue joint...

[Hotrock]

That sucks

I feel for ya dude.

[ShreddyKrueger]

I drew a picture in paint real fast. The dotted line represents the crack. although it is not as meat as my line.

http://fullservesite.com/pmetaldude41/crack.bmp

Edited September 25, 2004 by ShreddyKrueger

[javacody]

What kind of guitar is this? I suspect that you have a pancake body there. You may be able to glue that back up with probably minimal problems.

[bluespresence]

What kind of guitar is it? From your drawing it looks like the lamination separated if it is a laminate body. If the body is solid wood and it cracked like that that is not good!! Either way I'd say you have a new project......Build a new body and reuse the neck and parts for a custom "ShreddyKrueger" guitar!

I'm perplexed on why it would crack like that if the neck was bolted on tightly.

[ShreddyKrueger]

it's solid wood. it was the last place i'd ever expected a guitar to crack. It kinda went up as it cracked, so it might be fixable. I don't know.

[Southpa]

It kinda went up as it cracked

"IT" meaning the neck went up as it cracked? So from your drawing you obviously have a bolt on neck. And the only way I can see the pocket separating like that is if the screws holding the neck have failed. Its kinda strange because cracks ONLY occur when wood is under stress. Would I be right in guessing that the neck was also glued into the pocket? If it wasn't then only the neck would have moved. If so then screws fail, string tension pulls neck up and takes part of the pocket with it, not all the way tho before the glue holding the neck in separates.

All I can suggest is to gently pry apart the cracked part, insert/inject a strong glue and clamp the crack together. ALSO, check how your screws sit in the neck heel. If they are just wood screws then I would suggest replacing them with the proper sized bolts and neck inserts. Otherwise, refill the holes w/ wood and glue, drill pilot holes and reuse your screws.

BTW, we'd all appreciate knowing what kind of guitar you are asking about. Doesn't matter if its a lesser known brand, some of us might have experience with the guitar in question and could be more helpful.

Edited September 25, 2004 by Southpa

[PerryL]

Take this with a large grain of salt, but if it happened to me, I'd remove the neck, gently separate the crack with a wood wedge and apply a large dose of CA down in the gap and clamp it up with some wood shims to protect the back and neck pocket, and see what happens. You'll probably have to adjust the finish where the split is but that shouldn't be much of a challenge for you.

Do you have aneck plate on there or are they ferrules? If it's a neck plate you may wanna try separating it like above and give it good dose of hide glue instead of the CA. See, the hide glue doesn't have the water that regular titebond has either. Again, that's what i'd do if it were mine.

[ShreddyKrueger]

I have a Squier Strat, and i don't think it was glued in there, i never took it apart, but i don't think bolt-ons would have the neck glued in. I bought some gorilla glue and put some in the crack and clamped it, and i guess we'll find out tomorrow, or possibly monday if it'll will hold.

[PerryL]

Did you open up the crack so the glue would flow down in there? Cuz ya know, they say that a glue joint is stronger than the wood itself and if it's weak in that area it may break again if it didn't get all the way down there to the stop point.

[crafty]

How on earth did that happen???

Okay, there's a sandwich of poplar backed on one side by a metal plate and a thick piece of maple on the other. All of this is held together tight with four screws. So how could that crack have even occurred?

It just doesn't look right to me. Maybe the wood shrank and the compression of the "sandwich" and tension from the strings made part of the wood's cellular structure collapse and form a compression crack, but that just seems physically impossible.

[javacody]

Actually, a modern squier would 1 of three things:

Plywood (only the current bullet series)

Alder (Affinity series sold in the US, Chinese made)

Agathis (Standard series, these are made in Indonesia)

Some have been made of ash in the past too (the protone series).

At any rate, I've never heard of a poplar squier.

I have however, heard that sometimes asian made guitars do not use wood that is dry enough. I wonder if that could have something to do with this?