Just bought my first ever acoustic guitar (a Taylor Big Baby) used on a local craiglist-equivalent for about 130$. It came in the original gigback which had only one back strap left. I decided to bike home and strap the guitar crosswise on my back… in hindsight I should have realised that the one strap could not be trusted. Anyway I biked for about 3m before the strao broke off completely and the guitar fell on the asphalt. Upon arriving home I found the damage you can see in the picture :( The tuning peg of the G string was very crooked, I pressed it back in shape and for the moment it seems relatively stable…
What do you think I should do? try to glue the piece together myself? get it done professionally? try to get a replacement headstock? thanks for any advice and condolences!
Looks like an easy fix for a professional luthier. Depending on the price, you can choose if it is worth it, or if you can get another, better guitar instead.
Easy fix for anyone else too, if you’re not that worried about the way it looks. Personally I’m in this category, and this is what I’d do:
- Remove the strings so that there’s no tension at play.
- Remove the broken piece of wood, while making sure the metal stays in place.
- Wood glue the piece back, using clamps
- Just to be safe, wrap some metal wire around the head as reinforcement.
- Wait a day or two
- Restring, tune, and play.
Do not remove the broken piece of wood if it is not broken off already!
This crack is plenty small enough to fill with wood glue and clamp overnight.
Guitar repair is very Zen. You can’t ever really truly fuck up, because you’re starting place is fucked up. It’s just best to do what you can to not fuck up the fuck up Any more than it’s already fucked up. But if you do, that’s ok it was fucked up.
It’s very hard to get wood glue into a small gap like that. You should remove the piece to apply glue to the entire surface if possible. I just repaired a tiller on a sailboat like this. Don’t try to just get the wood glue in the gap, especially if the gap is small.
I am certified in acoustic guitar repair under a Luthier.
I would heavily advise against removing the wood.
There is still structural integrity by the machine head at the A string. Removing that structural integrity and replacing it by gluing the whole two pieces back together could lead to difficulty keeping it’s tuning down the line.
The only proof of my guitar-specific repair knowledge I can provide quickly is that I am aware of stewmac 😁 🎸
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Just use something like a toothpick to wedge it open just enough to get glue in there then take it out and clamp, you want to open up space to get glue in, but not enough to break it off or propagate the crack more
Yep.
You can pipe it in like a damn pastry chef. It doesn’t need to come straight from the tube you buy it in.
It’s important to get it everywhere and use it sparingly. use less than you think but you want it everywhere. Another poster suggested vacuuming out the excess which is fine to do if you’ve got a beater shop vac you don’t mind abusing 😁
Wood glue joins are stronger than the wood itself. This is an easy fix and the guitar will be fine. Youtube a few videos, search a bit, but the instructions above are correct.
Source: wood-glued a snapped hollowbody neck a decade ago, been playing great, always in tune.
Take the tuning pegs off and don’t remove the broken bit.
thanks, that‘s very good to hear! these go for about 470$ where I live so I think I‘ll bring it to a shop and get a quote
Homie that crack isn’t all the way through.
This is a simple fix. You can DIY.
Remove strings. Remove the hardware for your D string (assuming this isn’t a lefty model).
Carefully pipe in some wood glue. Get it everywhere but not too much.
Clamp it with whatever you got. Gotta be sturdy though. 100 rubber bands would work. So would wedging it in your damn toilet seat with enough weight on it.
Clean off excess glue
Let the glue set over night.
Reattach that tuning hardware.
Restring. You done. It fixed.
That’ll be $200 for the glue and the rubber bands, plz
Edit: added emphasis on wood glue. do t use Krazy Glue or any other Super glue. Super glue and wood glue are totally different products. This is an incredibly important distinction to make for a fix like this.
Edit 2: please DO NOT USE TITEBOND as the person below suggests.
You WILL fuck up your axe.
Piping in the glue. Like how? Syringe?
There’s other ways but this would be the more professional way lol.
Buying some with needle that’s roughly 1-2mm on diameter is relatively easy and it does not even need to be meant for glue (depending on what glue you use of course)
Note also that wood glue gets everywhere. After you clamp it it’ll still seep out for awhile. Use wet paper towels to clean off the non-glued surface
good point, thanks
People in the thread are telling you to use wood glue, and while this specific location would probably be fine, you should know that the rest of your guitar was assembled using hide glue for a very good reason.
Wood glue is very pliable and plastic in texture which is great for things like tables and chairs that are frequently being flexed as loads are applied and removed. The trade off is that the glue joints absorb vibration, which is VERY bad for an instrument.
Hide glue is more rigid and does less dampening. For this split on the headstock there won’t be a noticeable impact from using wood glue, but didn’t use it on other parts of the guitar.
I don’t know where you got that, but the difference is marginal at best. The quantity of glue used is very small, if used correctly, in both cases. The amount of finish is at least an order of magnitude more and affects the sound dampening significantly more. And I don’t see companies stating how many layers they put on. Not to mention pore fillers and other stuff.
Uh, have you ever built a guitar this century?
Man, I’ve never used hide glue in my guitar builds. It’s all PVA, Polyurethane and superglue. I’d use it if I was doing a traditional acoustic build, but it’s not necessary.
thanks, that‘s very interesting. I‘ll try it myself the using wood glue (which I have around anyway). Do do u think I should remove the pegs first? or try to glue around them?
Definitely remove the pegs first and get a clamp to hold the pieces together whilst the glue sets.
I’d remove the machine head/tuners on the bad side too. There will probably be a nut on the other side that you can undo and the tuners will just pull through. That will give you more working room and allow you to get the glue along the whole crack.
I’m less sure about this one but you could, very carefully slide something like a knife to open the crack out a little. The is might allow the glue to flow in better. If your glue is runny, it might not make that much of an improvement, so perhaps not worth risking cracking it off completely. (Although the glue will be plenty strong enough, if you take off the broken part it might not be easy to line it back up properly. If it’s still attached, you’ll be right.)
FWIW I once cycled 3 miles home with a new guitar too. It was in a heavy flight case and I thought it would be fine to carry it under one arm and wobble back one handed.
