Taylor 214 heel crack

[Kevin cConlon]

I am fixing  some damage to a Taylor 214 for a friend of mine who came off a flight and found his guitar neck was cracked at the heel. Its a Taylor 214 and I remember Frank or someone posting a while ago about the neck system taylor use, so I am wondering if anyone has had this problem. Its a clean crack and it had me wondering if indeed it was a crack at all but perhaps the joint had loosened because there's a bolt screwed into the fall away section of the fingerboard that can be accessed through the soundhole and that was a little loose. When I did tighten it up a bit it did indeed pull the crack tighter but not enough so it has had some knock or damage.  My intention is to get some hide glue in there and clamp it. Because of the nature of the Taylor neck its going to be very difficult for anyone coming along in a few years to a neck re set if I glue it up tightly but what option do I have.? Anyone know if taylor actually use glue when fitting this type of neck. 

Any info appreciated 

Kevin

[Russell Vance]

Yeah, too right:     and my pre-plastic Maytag is over twenty years old, outlasted marriage and kids, outlasted moving and storage and will likely outlast me - they certainly don't make THEM like they used to.   Funny how a washing machine can become iconic, or Honda's reliability across all their diverse products become legendary  - I guess it's a function of the lamentable state of quality that exists in the competition that makes these things great.   

Rusty.

[Ned Knepp]

I remember in the late 60's when the Japanese car invasion began, hearing many in my parents generation saying, " How can such a small car cost so much??"  Didn't seem to keep them from buying them. The first Honda car I ever saw on the road was a 600 coup driven by a 70 year old man. He drove it for at least 10 years.

Strikes me that this heel joint can't be all bad since it took a trip across half the world to crack it and, as you pointed out, Hesh, it's an easy fix.

[Hesh Breakstone]

Then in the 70's when even more folks were upset at the prices of imported Japanese cars there were quotas for a while placed on these manufacturers limiting what they could import.  What resulted was that Toyota, Honda, etc. started only importing "loaded" vehicles because their revenue opportunities were limited by the quotas.  Regardless folks stood in line to buy them and back then it was standard fare for the dealers to add additional charges to the stickers called "ADP" for additional dealer profit... that we had to pay, if we wanted the car..., just for the right to purchase one...  That sucked....

I live in automotive land here in South Eastern lower Michigan and can also recall the times when locals were taking shots at imports from freeway overpasses....

Rusty my folks had a Maytag for nearly 30 years and finally got rid of it because newer ones were somewhat programable...  But even as they carted the thing off it still worked great and had nothing wrong with it.

[Michael Moody II]

I wasn't bagging on Taylor at all. I didn't mean it to sound sarcastic or that i thought less of them for making things as simple as possible. Its the opposite, why spend more time doing something then you have too. Nothing wrong with that as long as the quality is the same.

[Paul Verticchio]

Just for fun...

Let's also look at this incident as if it happened to a traditional dovetail joint. The repair work would be considerable with additional damage to the endblock and fingerboard anticipated.

In the instant case, it's a matter of a simple glue & clamp & re-bolt fix. A dime's worth of glue and a half an hour of labor vs. potentially hundreds of dollars in labor and hours of time.

So, strictly as repair-folks, what's the downside to Taylor's neck building method again? (Rhetorical question. No response solicited).

(-:

[Kevin cConlon]

Have to agree totally that if this was any other joint it would be a whole different story. Just wondering has anyone tried building a guitar using this type of joint ? 

[Thomas James]

Since we've weaved a bit off topic... I got and old Maytag dryer too. $150 used, twenty five years ago. It has a book with an exploded diagram and part numbers. What a concept!

I am not a fan of Taylor from a playing perspective, but I admire the design work on that neck joint.

[Kevin cConlon]

Thanks to everyone who contributed here and I take it all on board. I mentioned earlier that my Liquid Hide glue was out of date but i had decided not to use it anyway and instead use the original yellow hide glue but again when I took that one down from the shelf  I discover that it too has been left with the little  push cap in the open position for some time--at least 2 months. It was a new bottle about 3 months old. The glue looks perfectly usable and I did a test piece that seemed ok  but the niggling doubts crept in and I decided to wait until the stores open next week to buy a fresh bottle.But I'm still left wondering whats the shelf life of Titebond original and would leaving the push/pullcap in the open position have affected  the glue?    

[Mike Kolb]

I must admit... somewhat sheepishly... to using Titebond that's been loitering-around for years. In fact, when a bottle gets low and hard to squeeze out that silly last inch or so, I'll find another "low" bottle and marry them up to get one decently-filled bottle.  Seemingly with no disastrous results, thus far.

Regarding leaving the cap open... it's a bad habit that seems to co-exist nicely with another bad habit of not wiping the glue from the spout:  the residual glue from whenever it was last used seems to form a nice protective barrier, thankew very much.  

In any event, I've never noticed a problem with that, either. If the glue's clean, kept at room temp and free-flowing, it seems to work just fine.  My 2-cents. 

[Kevin cConlon]

Thanks Mike, That makes me feel a little less guilty.   I must remember to buy a smaller size as well and keep  it handy around the shop and then just use the large size for larger jobs only .   Are some people here using the newer editions of the titebond --I think its Ultimate and Extend and not sure of the others.

Whats the verdict or is the original still the way to go ?

Thanks again

kevin

[Russell Vance]

According to the dudes at Fanklin (Titebond) the "Original" is still the way to go for general luthiery.  The larger manufacturers use the "original" formula with some modifications for production work but its basically the same.   The other variants of Titebond all have some creep built in for general furniture work which requires a little bit of flex and "give" - which is just what we do not want.

AV 160/180 Syntec is another high end cross-linked Aliphatic furniture glue that has this creep factor built in (didn't use to,  but it does now) - do not use it.

General test for whether your Titebond is still OK is to pour some out and see if it "strings" out when you pull a stick through it and lift it away - if it strings out it's gone off.  But, there is a shelf life for Titebond and it (probably) takes into account the worst case storage temps and exposure to heat and light etc -

We use Titebond that is within the use-by period for critical instrument parts glue ups and after that we use it for general purpose body laminate and large surface areas.   It's gone within 12 months in any case and we haven't had any problems over the years with this approach. 

But no point in screwing up a valuable instrument for the sake of 10 bucks worth of glue.   If in doubt chuck it out.

Rusty.

[Michael Moody II]

I think everyone can agree on that Rusty.