guitarron headstock broken twice

[Lee Gendvilas]

I repaired this Chinese made guitarron last year. The student who uses it keeps setting it up against a wall and it eventually falls sideways on the headstock. As you will see in the pics his dad has repaired it and son broke it again. I'm trying to contact dad to find out what glue he used. In the meantime, the owner would like to know if it can be repaired. Since I've not done a second time headstock repair like this I'm looking for advice as to how to proceed. I think replacing the neck wouldn't be cost effective and maybe the repair (if repairing is possible). Thanks again for your comments.

[William F.Eden]

Well Lee I am going to try and  tell you how to fix it . I am not going to get into all that other stuff althought it all has a lot of merit. I would try and clean all the glue off I can and reglue it back together, then sand about 1/8th off the back of the head right down to were the last part of the brake was and back strap it as well as take some off the top and veneer the top .You want to end up with the head piece the same thikness as it was before ,You can take a little off the side and lay a strip along the sides as well.I usely make up a jig to router the wood off the top and back. But all and all I charge a flat rate to repair a neck of a $150.00 some may think that is not enouf and some to much but that is the way I do it anyway. BUT after doing the repair I tell the customer if it happens again you will be buying a new Guitar......And  i  have yet to get one back.   Bill...

[Hesh Breakstone]

Wait a minute... maybe that is a genuine "Brazilian Tone Screw???"  Brazilian tone screws are well known for their ability to add tons of overtones as well as a lush, enveloping overall tone to the instrument.

On second thought, looks like a Borg (Home Depot...) screw to me.... good thing we didn't step in it.....

+1 to what our friend Paul has said!

If this came to my shop I would turn it away after commiserating a caring and appropriate amount of time with whom ever drew the short straw and was tasked with bringing it to me....  Poor thing needs to be put out of it's misery which, in and of itself, can be a very rewarding experience be it by bonfire, crushed by the many wheels on my nephew's Miller Genuine Draft truck, or even ventilated by some OO buck.  Personally I like the bonfires better especially if the instrument is strung to pitch first and not placed directly in the fire.  This way they creek and groan and fail in stages making for a better show and a longer good time.

We do a LOT of headstock repairs and actually love doing them.  Again my genius biz partner, David Collins, has designed and crafted a special jig especially for headstock breaks.  The jig is a series of articulated tables with integral clampage and a box full of common cauls for most quality.... brands of instruments.  The repairs are typically invisible or very nearly invisible if the client does not wish to spring for full touch-up.  But structurally the repairs are so solid that recently we had one of ours break again, just like this one did.... only it broke next to the original repair and the original repair remains solid and invisible.

The procedure for repairing headstocks in terms of how we do it has some prerequisites though that are pretty important. It can go like this:  Client calls and inquires and is advised to NOT mess with the break, slightly detension the strings, and bring it to us post haste (that means quickly for those of us who are not ancient like me)....

What we are looking for is to get the break as soon as possible before anyone trial fits it back together, removes chunks of wood and pitches them thinking that they are in the way.... etc.

When you think about it a fresh break if the fibers are all still there has a ton of surface, gluing area much more so than the original scarf joint.  So the trick for us is to trial fit and if the fit is great into the Collins jig the sucker goes.  If the fit is not so great we pick at the fibers, replace them into the orientation that they originally had, and then trial fit again.  The jig can apply copious amounts of pressure on all axis so clamping is never an issue.  But you want a great fit even if you have to pick away at some fibers to get there.

Back to the screw - even though it may be a genuine Brazilian Tone Screw you can imagine what it has done to the idea of a clean break and undisturbed fibers....  That alone, the screw, likely screwed the pooch here on this repair ever being structurally sound (without major surgery) or invisible.  This alone, the screw and what the screw does to the idea of a clean break, would cause me to turn the repair away.  Compounded with the idea that this is not a serviceable instrument as Paul also indicated, others too, and we have strike two.

And for strike three we have the idea that this is the second break on this instrument....  Kind of makes it difficult for me personally to want to go way out of my way doing unnatural acts in an effort to repair the thing well when a case can be made, twice now, that no one may ever really care about the instrument anyway....

Anyway if it was a candidate for our jig once we had a great fit and the trial clamping run went well it's heat the break with a variable temp heat gun (set below the smoke/bubble the finish and ruin your day temp...) and then slather on some Hot Hide Glue (makes me hungry just thinking about it...) and then to the rack, er... the jig with this one.

But that's the rub on headstock repairs, once someone else has messed with it, inserted a screw, used no reversible glue, pitched parts and pieces, how to you do a great job making a sound structural repair that is potentially invisible and not go over budget like the B-2 bomber?

So for us all bets would be off especially when one also considers the "opportunity cost" of spending way too much time on this one that could be time that serves many other folks if spent on their instruments.

Turn it away I agree.

[Frank Ford]

Most any broken headstock can be rebuilt using the backstrap overlay technique, but it's likely this instrument would fail the cost/benefit analysis.  So, it's the kind of thing I have to turn away every week.  Faced with the simple choice of repair/replace, the customer is likely to come to the same conclusion that we reach.