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Partially broken headstock, seeking advice...

MattS

MattS

Jan 17, 2011
267
115
Cheshire, CT
#1
What I mean by "partially" is that not the whole headstock is broken, only the part that holds the high G string. Do you think just wood glue and clamp is enough to secure this or would you advise some other method? It basically fell out of the gig bag and just broke off real clean. I appreciate any advice. Thank you.
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#2
If the pieces match up nice (looks like they should) then this should be a pretty easy fix. Remove the tuners. Use some regular wood glue and clamp them together. Wipe any glue squeeze out off with a damp rag before it dries. Let it sit in the clamps at least overnight.

You'll probably see some evidence of the breakage without doing finish work, but if you're willing to live with that you should then be back in business to reinstall the tuners and string it up.
 
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#4
TundraMan said:
If the pieces match up nice (looks like they should) then this should be a pretty easy fix. Remove the tuners. Use some regular wood glue and clamp them together. Wipe any glue squeeze out off with a damp rag before it dries. Let it sit in the clamps at least overnight.

You'll probably see some evidence of the breakage without doing finish work, but if you're willing to live with that you should then be back in business to reinstall the tuners and string it up.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was thinking of doing. Basically, I just wanted to make sure I didn't have to do something like this over the breakage line. *I couldn't find an example online that is close to my situation. This example here is extreme, I'm just illustrating the use of routing a small section that perpendicularly(?) crosses over the break and filling with wood and glue*.
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AND/OR rule out putting a piece of veneer over the whole back of the headstock for more support (?).
I've repaired cracks in headstocks before and have done refinishes, I don't think any refinish will be necessary here, but I plan on just putting some black marker (or black paint marker) over the front part of the break so the line will be less visible with the black headstock.
 
#6
It's a clean break because it was two pieces glued together in the first place. Glue and clamping will most probably fix it, but if it was my instrument, I would want to put a pair of dowls then there to make it stronger than it was before. If it's happened once...it's likely to happen again.
 
#8
I had a similar break occur on a Parker Hornet 5'r when the gig-bag strap connection failed. It went straight down to concrete but since it was padded by the bag - it was a clean break like yours. Once glued back tother it was stable and you could barely see the break with a bit of finish doctoring.
 
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