Just bought my first ever acoustic guitar (a Taylor Big Baby) used on a local craiglist-equivalent for about 130$. It came in the original gigback which had only one back strap left. I decided to bike home and strap the guitar crosswise on my back… in hindsight I should have realised that the one strap could not be trusted. Anyway I biked for about 3m before the strao broke off completely and the guitar fell on the asphalt. Upon arriving home I found the damage you can see in the picture :( The tuning peg of the G string was very crooked, I pressed it back in shape and for the moment it seems relatively stable…
What do you think I should do? try to glue the piece together myself? get it done professionally? try to get a replacement headstock? thanks for any advice and condolences!
People in the thread are telling you to use wood glue, and while this specific location would probably be fine, you should know that the rest of your guitar was assembled using hide glue for a very good reason.
Wood glue is very pliable and plastic in texture which is great for things like tables and chairs that are frequently being flexed as loads are applied and removed. The trade off is that the glue joints absorb vibration, which is VERY bad for an instrument.
Hide glue is more rigid and does less dampening. For this split on the headstock there won’t be a noticeable impact from using wood glue, but didn’t use it on other parts of the guitar.
Uh, have you ever built a guitar this century?
thanks, that‘s very interesting. I‘ll try it myself the using wood glue (which I have around anyway). Do do u think I should remove the pegs first? or try to glue around them?
Definitely remove the pegs first and get a clamp to hold the pieces together whilst the glue sets.
Looks like an easy fix for a professional luthier. Depending on the price, you can choose if it is worth it, or if you can get another, better guitar instead.
thanks, that‘s very good to hear! these go for about 470$ 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.
This. But I’d use hide glue and then after filling the crack with the glue, use a suction cup to pull it through both sides
Use titebond 1
Absolutely not.
Titebond expands. Hide glue/wood glue draws the wood fibers together…
In this instance we want our adhesive to draw our wood fibers together.
There is no more amateur mistake you could make than using krazy glue, tite bond, or any other polyurethane-based adhesive, in a situation such as this.
This point will be drilled into your head should you ever study guitar repair under a Luthier. There are two kinds of glues, and two gluing situations.
Edit: you can downvote if you want I’m literally making a repair like this ~10 times a year for a Luthier.
You’re dead wrong. And you’ll fuck up a guitar.
Even Taylor guitars uses titebond. I used titebond 1 on my neck thru builds and they’re fine.
You’re confidently incorrect.
And annoying as fuck.
This is where I block you.
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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Take the tuning pegs off and don’t remove the broken bit.