Heel Crack: Reinforce or Glue Only?

[Mark]

Hi

Inexpensive classical guitar with a heel crack.

Trying to decide whether to just work some titebond in and clamp it, or follow that up with a hardwood dowel (stepped/Miller dowel? straight with a longtitudinal groove for air evacuation?) or steel threaded device (screw?, long allen bolt? cap head screw) that spans the crack in the heel...

Some online advice is just to glue, but wanted to gather any intel I could find here before proeeding (already have the cap off).

Does leaving maximum wooden side grain surface along the glue joint have more benefit than putting a wooden or threaded steel rod inside the heel spanning the crack?

Thanks!!

[Taffy Evans]

Hi Mark, I would check if the part of the heal above the crack is still glued firmly into its joint in the heal block. On some jobs I find I have had to remove the neck clean everything up and do a good glue job. That looks like a tight crack so I do not know how much glue you would get in there to hold the repair firmly. It may need reinforcing using one of the methods you mentioned if not removing the neck.

Taff