A while back, I outlined a (slightly) unusual method of repairing the broken neck of a Gibson SG. I mentioned that guitar would make another appearance soon and here it is.

The guitar suffered a broken headstock while still in its case. A neck-break in the case was the final straw for the owner—who’s had more than one Gibson require a neck repair— and he wanted to consider options to help prevent it happening again. We talked over the pros and cons of the various solutions and eventually decided on a backstrap overlay.

This methodis sometimes used where the break is too nasty or offers insufficient glueing surface to guarantee a sound repair. A backstrap was not a necessity to repair this particular break (and, indeed, it entailed additional expense to carry out) but the owner wanted to do something that would go towards preventing a reoccurrence.

A backstrap overlay involves removing some wood from the rear of the headstock and some way past the broken section. A patch is cut from new wood and is bent to conform to the curve between headstock-angle and neck. Because the inlaid patch has been bent to shape, its grain has no run-out and remains strong.

I explained to the owner, and I will to you, that this offers no guarantees. However, this method of applying bent wood certainly strengthens a weak area of the guitar and it will be stronger than the original.

The first thing that needs to be done is to repair the existing crack. I’ve discussed this in a previous post so I’m not going into any detail here. A repaired crack is necessary so that the section to accommodate the backstrap can be removed. My usual preference, when doing this, is to run the strap right to the end of the peghead as the inlaid wood is more discrete. In this case, doing so would have removed the serial number and ‘Made in USA’ stamp and I decided keeping these better served the future value of this guitar.

A 3mm section is removed from the back of the headstock. The Saf-T-Planer allows me to do this cleanly right up to the point the neck angle gets in the way. The remaining section along the neck is removed with hand tools.

A piece of mahogony is thicknessed to the appropriate size and cut out roughly to shape. Out comes the trusty bending-iron and I work the wood into a gentle bend to conform to the section I’ve cut in the neck.

Some inelegant, but effective, clamping and glueing and the backstrap is in place.

But it’s not pretty. The patched in piece does allow you to get a look at the bend clearly though. Because the grain in that patch (backstrap) runs—uninterrupted—from end to end it’s much stronger than the piece that was removed.

A little work with routers, drills, knives and sandpaper and the new piece looks a little more like a headstock should. Some touch-up work helps hide the evidence. A (relatively invasive) repair like this can never be completely invisible under a translucent finish but this is pretty discrete.

We’ve repaired and strengthened a broken-necked SG and preserved the serial number. Not a bad few day’s work.

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars and is cross-posted there.
 Haze Guitars provides guitar repair, restoration and upgrade services and makes beautiful, hand-built instruments.

Nobody likes to see this. It’s the headstock of a Gibson SG and, as you can see, it’s broken. Ouch.

Something slightly unusual about this is that this guitar suffered a headstock break while still in its case. This is unusual but not unheard of. I’ve seen a few in my time (and I mention it in my general article about Broken Necks). It’s a real pain to hear this but even a good case might not protect your guitar in all circumstances. If you want to be even more safe, you can slacken off the strings before you pop your guitar in its case. Not the most practical solution but it is what it is.

Anyway, we’ve looked at headstock breaks before but I wanted to show you some unusual clamping arrangements on this one.

First off, let’s get the glue pot heating up. I’ll often use hot hide glue for repairs. If you use it correctly, it’s very strong and creep-resistant. I like the ‘traditionalist’ vibe of it too. Depending on the repair, it can be particularly suitable too (as it was in this case).

And the next photo—whoa, what’s going on here?

We’ve looked at various clamping methods before and discussed making custom cauls and whatnot. Sometimes though, headstock breaks can be very soundly and securely clamped by the clever application of ratchet compression straps.

“Are you mental?” I hear you cry.

Nope. If the neck crack is held on by the headstock veneer and, if it mates cleanly and securely, it can often be easier to use this method of getting the break back together. The strap is secured at either end—around the strap-button and through the tuner holes—and it can apply a strong, directional pull to keep the break together for glueing.

The block of wood I’ve used at the front of the headstock just protects it. Likewise, the cork padding on the rear of the body. Once the glue has been applied where it’s needed, tightening the ratchet applies the pressure that pulls the cracked headstock together again. There’s plenty of force—in fact you could probably pull the headstock off completely if you over-tightened.

Let the glue cure and clean up the excess with some hot water and a rag (another great advantage of hide glue) and it’s done.

This guitar will be making another appearance soon. Stay tuned.

Incidentally, I didn’t invent this clamping method (more’s the pity). Years ago, Stewart MacDonald’s catalogue used to include occasional tips from guitar techs and luthiers. I read this there and have been thankful for it plenty of times since.

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars and is cross-posted there.
 Haze Guitars provides guitar repair, restoration and upgrade services and makes beautiful, hand-built instruments.

A little ways back, I discussed the removal of an acoustic guitar’s neck for repair. I also talked a little about my opinions on the construction of that particular guitar. The neck-removal post was getting a little long so I decided to split out the reassembly part.

Putting an acoustic guitar back together generally involves some glueing. Sometimes more and sometimes less.

A bolt-on neck will generally just require that the fingerboard extension (the part past where the neck meets the body) be glued to the guitar top while the bolts inside will handle the job of pulling, and securing, the neck into the body.

A dovetail neck joint requires this but also needs glue in the joint itself. Depending on the manufacturer, the face of the heel (the flat portion that butts against the guitar side) may be glued too. Some guitar makers (Martin, for instance) don’t apply glue there while others (Gibson for example) glue it. This is one of the reasons it’s a bit more work to perform a neck reset on a Gibson.

In the case of this particular guitar though, the heel face is entirely flat and is all a glueing surface. The steel box-section tenons must also be glued into their corresponding mortice (channel) in the top and the fingerboard extension must be fixed to the guitar top.

Complicating matters is the fact that there is no force that would pull the neck into the body in the same way as a dovetail or bolt-on joint would. This means I had to clamp the neck into the body in some fashion while the glue cured.

Some inventive clamping-caul making later…

And I had a wooden caul that would fit the curved heel, letting me clamp the neck into the body. Ready to go. I did a couple of dry-runs with no glue as this was a tricky clamping job. When I was happy I could get the clamps on quickly and accurately, I went for it.

That clamp in the photos—running from the soundhole to the heel—wouldn’t normally be required but this instrument’s construction made it necessary. The clamp doesn’t actually contact the soundhole edge but I’ve got a piece of linoleum there to play it safe.

Once the glue’s properly cured, it’s ok to unclamp. I replaced the fret I removed (see the previous post) to help steam off the neck, made sure it was secure and level and I strung this little fellow up to make sure it played well.

This job was a little more involved than it might be on a different guitar. All that’s not important though. What’s important is that this guitar is making music again. That’s always good.

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars and is cross-posted there.
 Haze Guitars provides guitar repair, restoration and upgrade services and makes beautiful, hand-built instruments

An acoustic guitar with a dodgy, onboard preamp that had to be replaced.

What should have been a straightforward job became a little more complicated becauset the original preamp had a particularly large footprint. It was an older, discontinued model and the manufacturer was unable to supply a replacement that was as large. As it turned out, it was pretty difficult to find any manufacturer that had a unit that would cover the existing hole (and patching and recutting wasn’t favoured for cost reasons).

After quite a bit of internet rooting, a unit was found that would cover the hole in the guitar’s side. Great.

Just one problem though… Although the bezel covered the hole, the mounting screws were located such that the front two had nothing to screw into (see the locations marked on the blue masking tape).

The solution: glue in some wood for the screws to mount in. As this is the shoulder of the guitar though, the wood patch needs to be bent, or curved, to mate properly with the guitar’s side.

No problem. Out comes the trusty bending iron. I cut a piece of mahogany a bit larger than needed for the final patch as tiny pieces are very difficult to bend. Even larger pieces need gloves as that iron gets hotter than the surface of the sun. Making sure to keep the mahogany damp, I gradually worked the wood until the heat and steam loosened the fibres—you can feel this happen. Then, working along its length, I bent the piece to the right curvature to match the guitar shoulder.

Once it was there, I clamped the bent wood in an acoustic mould (I picked a suitable position to mate with the bent wood) and waited for it to cool and dry. I could then cut it to shape and glue it in place.

The sides of an acoustic—and in particular, this area—don’t play a huge part in its overall tone. This is why it’s possible to cut bloody, great holes for preamps in the first place. This patch is not going to have any effect on the guitar’s sound. It will, however, allow the new preamp to be mounted and will get this guitar gigging again.

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars and is cross-posted there.
 Haze Guitars provides guitar repair, restoration and upgrade services and makes beautiful, hand-built instruments

In a previous post, I gave my opinion on what I saw as the problems with the neck-joint design of a guitar I’d recently worked on. I thought you might be interested in some more detail about that repair (without my whinging about design issues). While some of the steps undertaken in this repair are common with any job that involves removing a guitar’s neck, you might find it useful to, first, check out some of the ways in which this guitar differed.

The guitar had taken a knock and its neck had become detached at the heel. It still appeared to have some attachment towards the guitar top but it wasn’t easy to see what was going on. Internally, there was quite a small neck block—too small to accommodate a dovetail—and no sign of bolts although the feeler gauge I inserted seemed to indicate something bolt like. It actually took a chat with the manufacturer’s customer service to sort it out. There were no bolts or dovetails—dowels were used to align the neck and the joint was a mortice and tenon.

Fixing a problem like this on a guitar isn’t just a matter of squirting some more glue in and hoping for the best. A proper job requires that the joint be disassembled and cleaned. If this isn’t done, the new glue will not penetrate properly and will only adhere to the older, failed glue rather than to good, strong wood.

Removing an acoustic guitar neck involves softening whatever glue is holding the neck to the body. A dovetail requires holes be drilled into the joint so that the glue can be softened by carefully injecting steam. That’s not required for a bolt-on neck, of course, but what is common with all joints—including this one— is that the glue holding the fingerboard extension to the guitar’s top be loosened. We do this by applying heat.

Sometimes that heat is applied using a cast block that I heat on a hotplate. For some jobs though, I use heating blankets. These are much more controllable but you still need to take care. The blanket is clamped—loosely—to the fingerboard extension and I keep a very close eye on it. When I judge that heat has penetrated the board and begun to soften the glue I remove the blanket and get to work with the palette knives. It’s a delicate job as too much pressure could easily tear into, or lift grain from, the guitar top underneath. It’s often necessary to heat the area a couple of times to separate the surfaces.

Once the fingerboard extension is loose, the neck removal can begin. As I mentioned, on a bolt-on this is an simple as undoing some bolts while a dovetail would need the joint steamed loose. On this neck, removal was complicated because of the construction.

You can see from the images that the neck has two steel box-sections protruding from the heel. These were glued into the corresoponding channels in the guitar top. I needed to get this glue to soften too but the heating blanket wasn’t going to do the trick. It was necessary to use a similar technique to that used for dovetail disassembly. I removed one of the frets on the extension, drilled a couple of small access holes and injected steam (very carefully—these are small channels very close to the guitar top).

This process, too, was made more difficult than on a traditional construction. Because of the alignment pins, I could not remove the neck from the body vertically. Instead, I needed to ‘pull’ the neck away from the side. It made for an annoying job as it’s really hard to get any leverage or apply pressure well.

—o—

As this is becoming a little long, I’ll cover reassembly in a future post. Oh, the suspense…

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars and is cross-posted there.
 Haze Guitars provides guitar repair, restoration and upgrade services and makes beautiful, hand-built instruments

I should definitely preface this post by stating that what follows is my opinion only. It may be that I’m alone in these views or it may be that other guitar builders and repair-techs agree. The post below, however, is my take on things.

I recently had a Tanglewood TW130 through the shop for repair.  It’s a nice little acoustic—I’ve always been a sucker for all-mahogany acoustics. The guitar had taken a fall and the heel had come away from the body. I’ll detail the steps taken to assess and repair this damage in a later post but I wanted to discuss the guitar’s construction as a separate issue.

Before I get to that though, a little primer on acoustic guitar neck joints. Bear with me…

The Traditional Dovetail Neck Joint

Historically, acoustic guitars had their necks fixed to the body with a dovetail joint. This is a very strong joint and when glued is damned solid. The dovetail is considered the ‘traditional’ neck-joint and it tends to be more prized by many who consider it imparts a superior tone to the guitar. A good dovetail joint tends to require a little more work and care to accomplish well though, and it makes for a little more work when performing a neck-reset on an older guitar.

The Bolt-On Neck Joint

For these reasons (and possibly others), many modern guitar makers use a bolt-on neck joint. In this joint, a short mortice and tenon is cut in the neck block (in the body) and in the neck. This is used mainly for alignment purposes although it provides some strength. Most of the joint’s strength, however, comes from the bolts that are attached, through the neck block, into threaded sockets in the neck heel. These tighten to pull the neck securely into the body and, questionable arguments about tone aside, provide a strong, solid joint. And, when it comes to setting the neck at some stage in the future, it’s much easier to undo some bolts than it is to steam out a glued-in dovetail.

The New Neck Joint?

This Tanglewood doesn’t use either of these methods, however.

This guitar has a quite small neck block (the part that the neck usually bolts or dovetails to) and has a slightly larger than usual support under the fingerboard extension. The reason for this latter is that there are channels cut here to accept the truss-rod (in the middle) and two square, box-sections of steel on either side.  It’s these steel sections that—glued into the channels on top of the guitar—that provide the bulk of the joint’s strength.

You can see three dowels poking out the front of the neck block/body—one of these is wooden and two are plastic. In my opinion, their primary role is alignment as they’re not going to provide much support.

The face of the neck-heel—where it butts against the body—is a glueing surface on this guitar and I guess this was considered sufficient support when combined with the dowels and channels. I’ve a couple of problems with this.

• String tension does a mighty fine job of trying to pull the headstock of a guitar down to meet the bridge. Poor support along the heel area can only make this job easier. Think of a long-bow. The tension of the bow-string pulls the bow into that arched (bow) shape. That’s what the strings are doing on your guitar too. The poor thing needs all the help it can get to resist those damn strings. One knock was enough to break the (slightly brittle) hold this glue had.
• Dovetail and bolt-on neck joints both pull the neck snugglyinto the body. As well as strengthening the joint, this can only help tone and string energy. The Tanglewood’s neck is, effectively, sitting on the body with a bit of glue and a couple of pins holding it in place.
• While it’s fair to argue the practicalities of the owner of a lower-cost guitar deciding to plump for a neck-reset at some stage in the future, should that happen, legitimately disassembling this sort of joint would (perhaps counterintuitively) be much more problematic than what was achieved with a simple fall in this case. As it happens, reassembly is more difficult too.

Now, I’m not being elitist here. This is not a guitar that cost thousands and there are many valid reasons for manufacturers to economise where they can. I’ve owned, played and repaired many cheapies and budget instruments in my time and many have been absolutely fine (and some have punched brilliantly above their weight). I’ve no idea how much money was saved in the manufacture of this instrument in this manner rather than with a regular bolt-on neck and I’m slightly conflicted in passing judgement as it’s great the there is now such a selection of fine instruments available for peanuts. It certainly wasn’t the case when I began playing guitar.

Personally, though, I can’t help feeling that the decision to go with this joint over a regular bolt-on has compromised this instrument. At very least, I feel it’s durability, and therefore longevity, is compromised. I don’t think that’s a good thing on any instrument, no matter how much it costs.

What do you reckon?

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars and is cross-posted there.
 Haze Guitars provides guitar repair, restoration and upgrade services and makes beautiful, hand-built instruments

There’s a funny thing that happens with some basses. It’s called the dead spot.

What’s A Dead Spot?

The dead spot is a particular note that won’t seem to ‘ring’. It won’t sustain and instead, the fundamental just dies away almost immediately. Sometimes you’ll hear some overtone-type vibrations of the note sustain very faintly but for the most part, the note is gone.

This tends to be most noticeable on one particular string and on one particular note but it can be evident (possibly to a lesser extent) a half-tone higher or lower and with the same note(s) on different strings.

The dead spot can, theoretically, occur on guitars too but it tends to make itself known on basses. Also, although not exclusively, it tends to make itself known primarily on Fender basses.

It’s possible to confuse a dead spot with a note that gets choked by a high/low fret but it’s a different beast entirely.

What Causes A Dead Spot?

To go into detail about this is beyond the scope of this article and beyond the scope of stuff I can bluff my way through.

In basic terms though, any note you play on your bass is the result of the string vibrating at a particular frequency. With me so far?

You’ve probably experienced sympathetic vibration when you’ve played. This might have manifested itself as the drummer’s snare vibrating when you play a certain note or your mum’s fine china rattling on the shelf every time you play an open ‘A’. These things happened to resonate in sympathy with a particular note.

Sometimes, a bass guitar resonates in sympathy with a particular note too and, sometimes, that resonance happens to work against the note being played with the result that that note’s vibration is quashed. You hear it as a quickly dying note or a dead spot.

Bummer.

So How Do I Cure A Dead Spot?

It’s all about changing the way the bass resonates. While I can’t, unfortunately, give you a definitive guide to fixing your dead spot, I can let you have a couple of tips. Your own mileage may vary and one or all may not work. One or both have worked for me in the past so… good luck.

1. Alter the resonance with cash

Groove Tubes make a device called the Fat Finger. This is a relatively chunky piece of chrome-plated brass (the same as that used to make bells, apparently) that is designed to clamp onto your bass headstock. It attaches without permanently altering the instrument so you can remove it at any stage in the future.

The increased mass at the end of the neck alters how it vibrates and may be sufficient to change the frequency at which your dead spot occurs. All going well, it will be shifted to some frequency between those that make up the notes of the western scales we’re used to. If you don’t get the result you want, try moving it about the headstock – different placement gives different results.

There are claims that the Fat Finder can increase sustain and improve tone. As to the former, I’d say it does make a small difference but the tone claim is probably a little more subjective.

Some don’t care for hanging a hunk of metal from their headstocks and doing so certainly alters the balance of the instrument. For these people the following may help.

2. Alter the resonance for free

So, this time around what we’re going to do is to partially decouple the bass’ neck and body.

As a little background, once while trying to track down a dead spot, I did all manner of things to improve the couple between the body and neck with the result that everything I did made things worse. After chasing my tail for a long time, it occurred to me that I was on the wrong track.

I tried backing out the screws that secure the neck to the body and immediately saw a difference.  What I’d done was to alter, slightly, the way in which the neck and body vibrated as one.

I have to stress that you’re not loosening these screws by much – the smallest fraction of a turn. The last thing you want is a neck that wobbles about in its pocket but, a tiny amount (an eight of a turn or even less) seems capable of making a difference.

Purists will argue tone and sustain with me and, while they’re probably right in theory, in practice, I haven’t been able to detect a difference. The amount of loosening is not sufficient to cause an audible difference in my experience and opinion.

What it has done though, again in my experience, is shift the dead spot sufficiently that it’s cured or very much improved.

Out Of The Dead Zone

As I say, there are no guarantees with this one. Both of these solutions are things that you can try yourself for little or no outlay and both are completely reversible.

Worth a try.

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars. Haze Guitars provides instrument repair, restoration and upgrade services in Dublin, Ireland.

I’ve written a little about specific headstock repairs and it occurred to me that might be a good idea to give you an overview with some tips  and considerations on how to prevent broken necks and what to do if the worst happens.  It’s a little long but could well prove useful to know…

The worst thing in the world?

You’re finished the gig and you’re enjoying a well-earned beer at the bar. You’re careful to keep an eye on your pride and joy, propped up against your amp on stage, to make sure nobody swipes it. It’s safe though, the drummer’s up there packing up his gear.

Wait! The drummer’s knocked against your amp with his fat arse*. Your guitar tips, slowly, very slowly, it’s going, it’s going… And it’s gone. It hits the ground and the headstock keeps going. You can hear the crack over the noise of the crowd.

Is there anything worse?

Of course there is, but for a guitarist this is one of life’s grimmer moments. A broken neck. You fall to your knees, hands imploring the heavens, and bellow, “Noooooooooo!” The security guy eyes you suspiciously.

Why? Why? For Clapton’s sake, why?

How could this have happened? Well, you could possibly go so far as to call it a design flaw. On any guitar with an angled-back headstock, the area where it angles is naturally weak. This is because of a number of factors but primarily to do with the timber’s grain direction and the fact that the area is pretty thin – the thinnest part of the neck. Add to this the fact that many instruments have a truss-rod access channel here, effectively removing even more wood from an already weak area, and you have a recipe for breaks.

The image on the left shows a Les Paul neck/headstock. I’ve added a dotted line to indicate, approximately, the depth that the truss-rod access cavity is cut. You can see there’s not a lot left.

Many guitar makers try to alleviate the potential for trouble in this area with a variety of means; multi-ply ‘sandwich’ necks, truss rod-access moved elsewhere or reduced, scarfed headstocks, and the most common, a volute. A volute is simply a shaped/carved ‘bulge’ that’s left in the weak area to strengthen it (although it might be more accurate to say ‘not to weaken it’).

Gibson are frequent stop-outs on this though. Although a volute was introduced on many Gibsons in the ’60s, it was phased out again and it’s appearance on modern Gibsons is hit-or-miss. Most don’t have one. Indeed, while all instruments with angled headstocks have breakage potential, Gibsons (SGs and Les Pauls in particular) top the charts in the headstock repairs I perform. If Gibson ever start strengthening this area, guitar repair guys all over the world are going to see their incomes drop.

My guitar neck is broken. What do I do?

If you do manage to break or crack your guitar’s neck or peghead, don’t panic. Almost anything is repairable. Here are the immediate steps to take.

1. If the headstock is still attached to the neck (the headstock veneer often keeps it attached), gently – very, very gently – slacken off the strings. Pop it in it’s case and get yourself to a good repair guy.
2. If the headstock is just cracked, do the same – slacken off and get it repaired.
3. If the headstock is completely detached, carefully wrap it up in something (a bag, newspaper, etc.) and try not to knock, damage or disturb those jagged splinters of wood poking out.
4. Don’t try to fit the headstock back to the neck as the joint should usually be examined and cleared of any misaligned splinters or loose timber before this is attempted.
5. Check for any splinters that have come loose and if you find any, pop them in a bag – they’ll help complete the jigsaw and assist in getting a good, clean repair.

Repairing a broken guitar neck

The first repair is the important one. If it’s not done well, then you’ve got a reasonable chance of the guitar breaking along that fault again. Sometimes string tension alone can be enough to pull a badly repaired break apart. And, repairing along a previous repair is much more difficult, time-consuming and often more invasive. Not to mention more expensive.

The lesson? Don’t break your guitar neck but, if you do, get it repaired properly first time around.

Talk to your repair guy and ask him/her to discuss the repair. A good repair guy will be happy to chat about their plans. What glue is used is important for example. For most repairs either hot hide glue or aliphatic resin is the right choice. If your repair-guy decides immediately to slap in a load of epoxy, probe them on why. While epoxy has a place in headstock repair, it’s generally a limited one. Its nature makes it difficult to penetrate cracks and it doesn’t grip wood in the same way as other glues – its rarely a first choice adhesive for these jobs.

The majority of broken necks tend to be relatively straightforward. Some, however, require a bit more effort. ‘Short’ breaks across the neck or the headstock that allow very little ‘glueing’ surface will often need to be reinforced. Reinforcement may involve glueing in new pieces of wood, called splines, that extend beyond the break and provide additional strength.

Other reinforcement methods include the use of ‘overlays’. A back-strap or front-strap overlay is a veneer of wood that gets glued on to the back or front of the headstock and will often extend down into the neck area (as shown in the diagram). It’s necessary to remove existing wood from these areas to fit the overlay and the newly-glued overlays must be drilled for tuners and so on. Refinishing the area is also necessary. Overlays take a lot of work but can often be a relatively discrete way of reinforcing a break.

This sort of reinforcement is often necessary for repairing previously-repaired breaks (i.e. second repairs) too- that’s why it’s important to get it right first time.

Prevention is better than cure.

Almost all headstock cracks and breaks are caused by the instrument falling. If everyone put their guitars into their cases after they were finished playing or gigging, I’d be able to afford less beer every month.

Cases are not a guarantee – I’ve seen a headstock break after a fall in a case – but they certainly get you most of the way there. A good-fitting, hard case will protect your guitar from most things. If you wanted to be a bit anally-retentive about it, you could slacken the strings off before stowing your guitar but that’s probably overkill for most people (although you should definitely do so if you ever have to ship your guitar anywhere).

If it’s too much of a pain to put your guitar away, get a decent stand or locking hanger. There are even hangers that can attach to your amp combo or cabinet now. Stands and hangers obviously won’t give you the same protection as a hard case but they’re better than just leaning your guitar against your amp (no matter how cool that might look).

The upshot

Protect your guitar and you might never have to get its neck repaired. If the worst happens though, don’t panic – things can be put right again. Make sure you trust whoever is repairing the broken neck though – the only thing worse than having to get your neck repaired is having to get it done twice.

If you’ve any questions, feel free to shout up in the comments below. I’ll do my best to answer them.

*With apologies to drummers everywhere – I’m a bad person, going for the easy laughs. ;-)

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars. Haze Guitars provides instrument repair, restoration and upgrade services in Dublin, Ireland.

In the last article, Heads Up 1 – Headstock Cracks (Easy-Peasy), we looked at a pretty basic repair of a cracked peghead. This time, we’ll take a look at one where the repair needs a little bit more thought.

A More Challenging Headstock Crack Repair

With string tension slackened, this crack is pretty hard to see. Even under string tension, it only opens a little. This makes things a little more difficult as it’s important to work the glue all the way into the crack to get the best repair. With a narrow crack like this, that can be a tall order.

Before I get that far though, I want to consider how I’m going to clamp this repair. Unlike the repair in the last article, the location and headstock shape means I’ll need to get inventive on this one.

Making a caul

The problem is that the carved portion at the end of the headstock, and the angle it meets the neck, means getting good, even clamping pressure there will be tricky. A few years back, I’d have fashioned a complicated wooden clamping-caul to fit the shape and angle (a caul spreads the clamping pressure across a wider area and protects the wood being clamped). This would have taken hours and would have entailed a lot of swearing and promises to raise prices on headstock repairs. Now though, I use a model-makers’ mouldable plastic. It’s sold under a few names – Stewart MacDonald sell it as Friendly Plastic.

It comprises lots of tiny pellets that become soft and malleable when soaked in hot (very hot) water. Here, I’m soaking a plastic caul I’d used on another job – the plastic is reusable. When it becomes clear, it’s soft enough to mould into shape. I cover the headstock with a plastic bag to keep it dry and press the soft plastic to it, working it around the nooks and crannies. Leave it for a while and it hardens, becoming opaque white again.

Hey presto, a perfectly shaped, very strong clamping caul.

Repairing the headstock crack

Now to the repair itself and this is the tricky bit. What’s necessary is to open out that crack a little to give the best chance of getting glue in there. Doing this is fraught with danger and requires careful consideration and very delicate handling. Experience and a ‘feel’ for the job is important – the tiniest fraction too much pressure and you’ll hear a horrifying snap. You’ll then be dealing with a break instead of a crack.

As you can see, I’ve clamped a relatively bulky piece of timber to the front of the neck and headstock. This is cut to an angle similar to the current headstock angle. Not quite though, as the slight mismatch allows me to use the G-cramp at the end of the headstock to slowly and gently apply pressure in order to open up the crack a little.

With that done, I mix up some hide glue and get to work heating it up. While that’s heating, I (very gently and carefully) use a heat gun to warm the area of neck around the crack. This is done slowly and gradually and I make sure not to heat the finish too much as it could damage it. If I go slowly, I can eventually warm the wood through. Why would I do this? Well having the wood of the crack warm will give more time before the hot hide glue gels when it’s applied. More time before gelling means more time to run into all the recesses of the crack.

Now it’s time to go (although I’ve done a dry run without glue before of course). In a further effort to get that glue all the way in, I’ve clamped the neck in a downward position to get gravity to lend a hand (actually, while I was actually applying the glue, I had the guitar completely vertical but I wasn’t able to take a photograph at that point).

An advantage that the hot hide glue gives me is that I don’t need to make it terribly viscous. I can mix it a little thinner without affecting the final strength too much. I apply it into the crack with a pipette and I put in more than I need. I don’t mind making a bit of a mess to get this one done right. I work fast as even the pre-warmed wood won’t keep that glue liquid for long. Then I quickly wedge the headstock back using a cork-lined wedge. This gets the crack shut quickly and I see some glue squeeze-out all along the crack – even down the bottom. This is a good thing. I then apply my pre-made plastic clamping caul and clamp it in place to properly seal up that crack.

Then I leave it. For a day. I resist the temptation to disassemble my clamping setup even after leaving it overnight. I know that this is overkill but I like to play safe with these jobs.

After I unclamp everything, it looks pretty good. There’s a bit of dried glue around the repair but that’s easy to clean up. The crack is shut tight and that’s what I want. If I can (and I could in this case), I like to string these up to tension and keep in the workshop for a few days before letting the customer have it back. It makes me feel more confident that the repair’s not going to fail.

This was a clean repair. No finish touch-up was necessary and it’s solid, sound and pretty discrete

Next time, we’ll take a look at a more serious break. Stay tuned.

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars. Haze Guitars provides instrument repair, restoration and upgrade services in Dublin, Ireland.

Right. I’m going to take a bit of a look at headstock damage. That bit up the end of your guitar neck can sometime be a bit vulnerable and I thought we’d outline the repairs to some of the issues that can occur.

Before we get going, the majority of (but not all) problems and damage to a guitar or bass’s headstock is caused by the instrument falling. If everybody put their guitars in their cases when they weren’t being used instead of leaning them against their amps, guitar repair-guys all over the world would see their incomes drop. Angled headstock guitars are particularly susceptible to this sort of damage and Gibsons even more so (although by no means exclusively). Pop your guitar in its case or on a secure hanger and you reduce your chances of breaking your head.

If you do manage to break or crack your guitar’s neck or peghead, don’t panic. Almost anything is repairable.

We’re going to start with some – relatively – straightforward stuff: cracks.

An Easy Headstock Crack Repair

A headstock crack is generally a little better than a complete break. There is usually still some wood holding somewhere and aligning the pieces of the crack tends to be straightforward.

One drawback of a crack is that, in most cases, it’s difficult to work sufficient glue into the crack to get a sound repair. If the glue doesn’t penetrate well (i.e. all the way) into the darkest recesses of the crack, the repair is not as good as it could be. This means inventive ways to open the crack and to work the glue in must be found.

In some cases, as in this classical peghead crack, it’s not too difficult. This was a pretty easy repair. The crack is along the scarf line where the manufacturer glued an extension to the neck blank in order to form the peghead itself. The location allows for the crack to be opened quite easily by wedging (carefully) into the tuner hole. Once it’s open, hot hide glue is worked in without too much bother. Then – and again the location is lucky – the crack can be easily clamped without any hassle.

The larger, wooden cam-clamp in the image is there to keep the repair aligned and isn’t exerting a lot of pressure. The pressure is coming form the two smaller bar-clamps. As you can see, I’ve put wax paper between the clamps and the repair to prevent them all getting glued together. I’m not even using cauls here – the clamp jaws are soft and there’s not much area over which to spread the load.

This instrument is a budget guitar and the owner just wanted it made sound. No touchup was performed and the clean-up of the hide glue is nice and easy too – some warm water does the trick.

Quick and cheap. No muss, no fuss.

Next time, we’ll go with something a bit more challenging.  Read that in the brilliantly titled, Heads Up 2 – Headstock Cracks (A Bit More Challenging).

This article was brought to you by Gerry Hayes from the workshop of Haze Guitars. Haze Guitars provides instrument repair, restoration and upgrade services in Dublin, Ireland.