side crack

[Charles Simons]

My first build in 2002 was a stewmac d28. It went together well (only 500 hours!) but one mistake that i made that is showing up only now - is that I did not clamp the little side re-inforcement pieces that go between the kerfing on the inside at 4" (or so) intervals. Not having the right clamps, I coated one side of each piece with glue and stuck it on.

So now I've got a crack, roughly midway in the side that started near the tail block (DID clamp that...) and has gone about 10 or so inches on the lower treble bout. For what its worth, its a nice clean crack - the french polish has not flacked off. I seem to remember someone using supermagnets to somehow put things right, but I cannot sort out how to proceed. I'd like to be able to fix it through the sound hole, but am ready to rout off the binding on the back to get to it if necessary.

I've never been very good a searching the library - i tried 'side crack' and it returned nothing...

Any suggestions appreciated!

[Doug Shaker]

I think this may be the article you are thinking of
http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier ... plint.html
It's Frank Ford's article on repairing side cracks. I just read it recently myself.

[Barry Daniels]

You will need some spool clamps to repair the crack, so you might as well make 4 or 5 of those. Then do a dry run and see if the crack will close up without any alignment issues. If so, you can just apply some glue and clamp it up. Then use the magnets to glue in a couple of patches to reinforce the crack.

[Charles Simons]

THanks for the suggestions - I'm a little embarrased that I didn't go see Frank Ford about this before posting.