# Standard busted peghead reair



## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

A young friend of mine had the misfortune of having his guitar knocked over and the typical broken head stock was the result.

I know this is a common mishap and that repair results are quite positive. I'm going to do it myself. Is there anything to it besides gluing and clamping?


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Ouch!

Just filling up space to pass the word limit


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Happens a lot

The most common victims seem to be Gibsons.

I've seen amazing repairs and probably seen lots that were repaired but undetectable.


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

do you have a picture with a lateral view of the crack, like looking at the back of the neck?
looks like a pretty clean break- a simple glue and clamp from that photo angle-
since it appears most of the break is behind the nut, if theres little or no missing splinters of wood, thats what id do.
if theres any smaller cracks springing out from it, or theres wood missing, id be tempted to inlay a splint
good luck man
:food-smiley-004:


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

It still chokes me up to it.
I flash back to seeing my classical broken.

It didn't have any major splinters, and was easy to fix. It's still working today. Which was great news. I love that guitar, and at the time I couldn't afford to replace it.

This one looks like it should be fixable.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

Milkman said:


> Happens a lot
> 
> *The most common victims seem to be Gibsons.*
> 
> I've seen amazing repairs and probably seen lots that were repaired but undetectable.


True. I've seen a lot of Jacksons as well for some reason, esp the neck thrus. Wonder if the set neck/neck thrus dont dissipate the shock as well as a bolt on does?
Or maybe they are simply the guitars of choice for baadasses!


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

Frets.com is a great source for repair and setup information. They have several pages devoted to neck cracks and breaks.

http://frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Structural/BrokenHeadstocks/LongBreak/longbreak.html


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Looks like a routine fix, though it's hard to tell without it in hand. I've simply glued and clamped them, spliced in a "butterfly" reinforcement, and added a headstock backplate, depending on the guitar and the damage.

Just last night I had to tweak the setup on a friend's D-18 with a very old and sloppy headstock repair which is still holding great. Quite a guitar with real history. 

I do a couple of these repairs every year or so. Gibsons, Epiphones, cheap imports, accidents, abuse, dumb chance...they are the cost of doing business as a musician.

Peace, Mooh.


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## xuthal (May 15, 2007)

im doing the same with a friends acoustic,glued it at around 8:30 lastnight.Anyone know the gluing time for lepage wood glue or any wood glue in general?my basement is pretty damp and is the only place i can put it as my nephew is a rowdy little bugger.Hope you do a good job,frets is an excellent site,thats where i get most of my info that i need.The only problem is,when im done fixing my friends guitar i'll be looking for another broken one:smile:


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## xuthal (May 15, 2007)

BTW this link looks to be more similar to your problem,almost the same break.
http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Lut...okenHeadstocks/PegheadCrack/pegheadcrack.html
iin my guitar repair book i have irving sloan suggests white or yellow wood glue for neck jobs.The hide glue sounds better but i would think normal wood glue would work if you cant find any hide glue.As long as it cures good it should hold up pretty well.AS for curing i'll wait for the answer from the real luthiers:wave:


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Well I think I did pretty well.

I used a syringe to get glue way back into the wound and then clamped it with three C-clamps and some popsicle sticks to prevent finish damage. I also put a couple of clamps on the end of the peghead to put a little more weight on the joint.

I left it over night and just strung it up. It seems sound and almost invisible.

I'll post a couple of pics when I find the GD camera.

All in all I'm very pleased and I hope the young lad who owns it will be as well.

Thanks for the advice.


(found the camera)

Before









After


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Good thing it didn't break like the neck when you scroll down on this page-
It's a pink-ish Ibanez


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

Diablo said:


> True. I've seen a lot of Jacksons as well for some reason, esp the neck thrus. Wonder if the set neck/neck thrus dont dissipate the shock as well as a bolt on does?
> Or maybe they are simply the guitars of choice for baadasses!


its not the fact that its a set rather than bolt on neck, rather its the engineering-
gibsons have offset headstocks, they have an angle to them, to help with tuning stability and sustain. to make this, the headstock is glued to the neck, so there is a glue joint below the nut. the downward angle as well projects impact to that glue joint perfectly and they break, as the headstock hits the floor before the back of the neck does- and with all that string tension- geez lol
a fender neck, or bolt on type if you will, is a solid chunk of maple from heel to headstock, no joints at high stress areas-
they use string trees to angle the strings for tuning stability instead, and there is no angle change from neck to headstock.
thats why gibson types break there and fender types dont

nice clean work milkman- you done good:food-smiley-004:


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

fraser said:


> its not the fact that its a set rather than bolt on neck, rather its the engineering-
> gibsons have offset headstocks, they have an angle to them, to help with tuning stability and sustain. to make this, the headstock is glued to the neck, so there is a glue joint below the nut. the downward angle as well projects impact to that glue joint perfectly and they break, as the headstock hits the floor before the back of the neck does- and with all that string tension- geez lol
> a fender neck, or bolt on type if you will, is a solid chunk of maple from heel to headstock, no joints at high stress areas-
> they use string trees to angle the strings for tuning stability instead, and there is no angle change from neck to headstock.
> ...



Thanks. I'm satisfied with the work. I would add that even when they fall face first (forward) they often break in the same place. I guess the shock of the impact does something.

On the bright side, it's great that repairs to this kind of damage are not difficult in spite of how bad it looks. How many great guitars would end up in the garbage heap were that not the case?


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Paul said:


> Do I know your young friend too? If that's that guitar I think it is, it's great that you've made a decent save.



Hey Paul,

Yeah it's Billy's Washburn. Turned out prety good I think. He seems pretty happy.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Paul said:


> I feared it was his orange quilt top Epi LP. I've played that one, and it is a very nice axe.
> 
> Good job on the glue work.....I've yet to break a guitar like that, and wouldn't attempt to fix it myself if I did. There is a guy in Cambridge who does incredible work. I've never met him, but I've played before and after repairs and it's stunning what can be done.
> 
> What's up with the cyrstaline entity? I haven't seen an update in a while.


No his Epi is intact. I've fixed that one too, but not a peghead break, just s rewiring and set up.

The Crystaline Entity is on the workbench for this week while I'm on vacation. I'm using a custom wiring scheme that I goofed up a bit. The tech at EMG has given me a diagram that wil solve it. It's just a matter of getting the time to do it. I guess almost everybody will say they're busy, and I'm no different.

It should be done and ready to test tommorow with any luck.


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