Glue Joint Question

[t1r12003]

I was hammering in the string ferrules on this Carvin neck through I'm making and one of my wings popped off. It was a completely clean separation, so basically, a bad glue joint on my part. I think my neighbors heard me shout out a few F bombs, because I was not happy.

Question is, when going to reglue this, should I lightly sand back the dry glue on both the maple and limba pieces before regluing or just reglue it with the left over dry glue?

[Rick500]

Nice body shape and wood. I like the roundover.

Get all the old glue off both sides of the joint before you try to glue it again. Glue doesn't stick well to dry glue, not to mention it won't be two flat surfaces with dry glue in there.

Edit: What kind of glue did you use?

Edited May 4, 2008 by Rick500

[ngaa]

Try rubbing the pieces together after you apply the glue, this will fill all the gaps and there should be no air left in there, creating a very good glue join!

[RFR]

Bummer!!

I would do this;

First clean off ALL the old glue. You want clean tight fitting raw wood.

Trace out the side profile onto a 2x4. Do this for BOTH wings

With a jig saw cut out your tracing. These 2x4s now become your form fit clamping blocks

Line the inside cut of the 2x4 with some paper, towel, t shirt or what ever will pad it a bit.

This way you will avoid damage to the body.

A great way to apply glue is using a foam paint roller ( the kind you use for trim, the small ones)

Tom Anderson guitarworks uses this method.

Roll out a thin layer of glue on both pieces and clamp till you have glue squeeze out .

To protect the wood on the top and the back from absorbing the glue, which could be a mess later on, tape off the top and back with some blue tape.

Hope that helps

Roman

[t1r12003]

Thanks for the quick replies and advice. I'll sand back to bare wood before gluing it up again.

I used Titebond, which I use all the time. I think that it was either not enough glue on my part, too much wax on the edge of the limba (got it from Gilmer who has awesome pieces, but they dip them in a lot of wax), or the maple neck through from Carvin was also treated and didn't stick.

Either way, it's a relatively easy fix, and again, I'm lucky the separation was clean and straight.

I'll post the final guitar pics in a new thread. Thanks again guys.

[fryovanni]

Thanks for the quick replies and advice. I'll sand back to bare wood before gluing it up again.

I used Titebond, which I use all the time. I think that it was either not enough glue on my part, too much wax on the edge of the limba (got it from Gilmer who has awesome pieces, but they dip them in a lot of wax), or the maple neck through from Carvin was also treated and didn't stick.

Either way, it's a relatively easy fix, and again, I'm lucky the separation was clean and straight.

I'll post the final guitar pics in a new thread. Thanks again guys.

Check the date on your Titebond, it does have a shelf life and will go bad.

I would use a scraper to clean the surfaces, and the suggestion about making cauls that was given above sounds good.

I doubt the problem was with the wood, as a properly prepaired joint(you would surface these clean) would not be effected. Parrafin can be a bugger if it gets in the way during finishing though.

A couple things that could be mentioned about prepping a glue joint for Titebond. One freshly surfaced is important. You want to surface the joint faces shortly before glueing. After a surface is prepped oils and such from the wood start to make their way back to the surface, so freshly prepped is going to give you a better surface. Lightly wiping the prepped surface with a moist rag will help when working with Titebond. Titebond needs a very tight fitting joint(Titebond is a lousy filler). Be careful not to use too little glue and starve the joint, too much glue makes the joint hard to manage during clamping(either way be sure to re snug up your clamps again after a few minutes, and monitor your alignment several times over the first hour or so it is clamped).

[t1r12003]

Got a couple curved pieces of wood to help set the clamps. Taped off the neck and frets so no glue would get all over. Also, you can't see the back, but I did the same with the string through ferrules. Wiped off as much excess glue that squirted out with a damp rag to make the clean up sanding easier. I'll let it sit for a couple of days, then get back to finish sanding. It had been ready for an oil finish before coming apart.

[Rick500]

Looking a lot like a black limba DC127 with a tele control route.

[t1r12003]

Looking a lot like a black limba DC127 with a tele control route.

That was the inspiration.

[Rick500]

Very nice. Looking forward to seeing the finished guitar.

What color hardware are you going to use? Black would look awesome, I think.

[t1r12003]

Very nice. Looking forward to seeing the finished guitar.

What color hardware are you going to use? Black would look awesome, I think.

All gold. Tele control plate, Carvin string through bridge, pickup rings and tuners.