Cracked Headstock opened up

I purchased a yamaha fg730s a year ago...it had a cracked headstock that was glued and clamped with Titebond. Its a great knock around guitar, with action and sound that rivals my guild d50. Should I glue again with titebond, or use something else?

The original repair was tight and smooth, but me thinks the heat did it in...

Thanks for the advice

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Permalink Reply by Ned Knepp on July 27, 2015 at 1:00pm

Personally I've never had much luck putting new aliphatic resin glue over old. I've seem some instances were "rewetting" the old glue with very hot water was the approach that seem to work but I wouldn't trust it on anything that I expected to stress even a little much less with a set of strings tuned to pitch.

The bottom line is that I think the old glue needs to be cleaned out which isn't usually so easy to do completely. Because of that, I think you may need to consider supporting the break with a "backstrap" repair as well as new glue.

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Permalink Reply by Frank Ford on July 27, 2015 at 1:13pm

Heat is the killer of headstock repairs, and the reason I never use Titebond for that job. At this point, cyanoacrylate might be a good choice - it can run in everywhere, stick like crazy and form a matrix in the cracks and voids. It's pretty much heat proof, and has terrific cohesive strength. You have to watch the finish, though, so if it's at all soluble in acetone, the squeeze out cyanoacrylate will be hell to remove or otherwise clean up. . .