Oud neck break: opinions sought

[Keith Somerville]

Hi, all!

A customer of mine brought this back from Egypt. Unfortunately, and inevitably, it was damaged in the hold of the plane. Wondering what, if anything, I ought to do to strengthen the damaged area. In many ways, it would appear that a straight glue-up would be pretty much the same strength as the original joint: with same amount of long grain contact? Any thoughts most welcome!

[Lee Gendvilas]

Hi Keith,

I have one on my bench in the same condition. I'm planning on gluing it with slow set epoxy since the one I have is a clean break.

Anyone else have a solution?

Lee

[Lee Gendvilas]

[Allan Bacon]

I'd be inclined to put a couple of splines down the neck and into the headstock, probably with some sort of "L" shape on the top.

But before I did that I'd thin some TiteBond I 10%, spring the crack in the neck open and inject the glue as far as I could. Use a thin guitar string cutoff end to help poke the glue down the crack. Clamp it for 48 hours. Then do the splines. 

[Roger Häggström]

I think glue will do. But maybe a wooden dovel or two through the fretboard? With a cap on the end with the fretboard wood to hide the dovels.

[Keith Somerville]

Ha! Almost identical! I'm just going to go ahead and epoxy it. Still in two minds about adding additional strength.

[Keith Somerville]

Just for future reference, I used West System Epoxy and just clamped it to the bench: you can get a narrowish clamp right in the pegbox right where you need it. No problems. Restringing the thing was the hardest part of the job!