guitar broke

Joined: 17 Dec 2008 Posts: 89

guitar had a damage from the fell on the floor and it seems like the wood is cracked a litle bit, not just the finish. when i push the headstock all area is moving like its going to split in half but its just a little bit of opening, nothing big. is there any tutorial to fix this? or some personal experiance? Thanks

Joined: 03 May 2008 Posts: 6629 Location: Minnesota

If you are handy, it is repairable at home with a set of clamps, some titebond, and a syringe.

if you are not, take it to a luthier.

Where are you located?

Joined: 17 Dec 2008 Posts: 89

Im from Serbia Very Happy

Joined: 20 Dec 2007 Posts: 4913 Location: Brooklyn, NY

Graunke is right. I recently did a repair for a Gibson SG that had a worse break than that. Take the strings off, get some quality wood glue (if you have a syringe load it with wood glue, if not a pipette could work) and get the glue as far into the crack as much as possible. Clamp it tightly together, wipe the excess and let it sit undisturbed for a day or two.

Joined: 17 Dec 2008 Posts: 89

how did you repaired finish and paint? if you have time tell me detailed description, this is first time i have to do this my self

Joined: 20 Dec 2007 Posts: 4913 Location: Brooklyn, NY

sarafdimebag wrote:

how did you repaired finish and paint? if you have time tell me detailed description, this is first time i have to do this my self

The paint is a more detailed and difficult job. First you need to mask off (with masking tape of course) the area around the damage the is fine. Then you want to go in and sand down the area you want to blend in. You don't want to be too rough, just get the paint more or less even with the wood. Fill the gouges with woodfiller that doesn't shrink. Dean uses a strange finish, I believe it's polyester rather than polyureathane. Finding an exact match will prove very difficult but because neither finish "burns in" to itself it won't really matter. You could just use black nail polish if you can find one that matches the finish, but nail polish is typically lacquer, just so you know.

Either way, you'll need to paint it black, then add the clear finish back on. You could achieve this with two cans of spray paint (one black, one of polyureathane. However, I would recommend extensively masking off the body for safety's sake. Just lay down a couple coats of black and once it's drying time has been reached then you can throw down multiple coats of polyureathane until the finish is level with the neck. Remove the tape and blend whatever lines have been made into the old finish by abrasion. You may need buffing compound and various grades of sand paper. Or you can go the easy route and take a high grade abrasive to the neck and make the whole neck matte looking, it has a great feel. Good luck!

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 8:29 pm

Graunke wrote:

If you are handy, it is repairable at home with a set of clamps, some titebond, and a syringe.

if you are not, take it to a luthier.

Where are you located?

Or ship it to Alan.

Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 4860 Location: Pennsylvania

BKW wrote:

Graunke wrote:

If you are handy, it is repairable at home with a set of clamps, some titebond, and a syringe.

if you are not, take it to a luthier.

Where are you located?

Or ship it to Alan.

that would cost more than the guitar Laughing

Joined: 20 Dec 2007 Posts: 4913 Location: Brooklyn, NY

cgibsong002 wrote:

BKW wrote:

Graunke wrote:

If you are handy, it is repairable at home with a set of clamps, some titebond, and a syringe.

if you are not, take it to a luthier.

Where are you located?

Or ship it to Alan.

that would cost more than the guitar Laughing

Both for the job and shipping alone.

Joined: 17 Dec 2004 Posts: 9602 Location: Portsmouth, VA

Pry it apart gently, inject the glue as earlier mentioned, clamp, and wait. The finish is screwed unless you want a full refin.

Joined: 17 Dec 2008 Posts: 89

im afraid i dont have skills, is it easy? i get all things i have to do, glue and then sanding, pefrectly undertsand ,just never did that. is there a bg chance to f..k up something, or its piece of cake. i mean im going deepest to the wood, i cant to wrong? Smile

yea im a noob in this

Joined: 20 Dec 2007 Posts: 4913 Location: Brooklyn, NY

sarafdimebag wrote:

im afraid i dont have skills, is it easy? i get all things i have to do, glue and then sanding, pefrectly undertsand ,just never did that. is there a bg chance to f..k up something, or its piece of cake. i mean im going deepest to the wood, i cant to wrong? Smile

yea im a noob in this

Well, you're not Polish so... Haha. It's a piece of cake, just take your time, and make sure you get the glue in there well. IT's already broken, as long as you don't force it to where you snap it, you'll be fine.

Joined: 09 Jan 2012 Posts: 62

I broke the headstock on my Les Paul Studio. It would have cost me as much to fix it as get another one. So I did it myself. I will hunt down the youtube vid I followed and post it. I didn't bother with painting it though. Too much trouble.....

Here it is. That glue is the business!

[url] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULCx-MiGgpM&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/url]

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 3:00 pm

Part one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULCx-MiGgpM

Part two http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luhFwQR5Cnk

Joined: 29 Nov 2003 Posts: 5799

I repaired this 2 weeks ago with Titebond and clamped it for a week. This was before the fix and with me holding the crack open. Keep in mind that this crack, as with yours, will be helped with string tension. Mine played fine and held tune even cracked, I just wanted it fixed.

Joined: 09 Jan 2012 Posts: 62

Joined: 09 Jan 2012 Posts: 62