washburn headstock repair

[Jerry Stapleton]

Well,it looks as if I opened a can of worms with the Les Paul headstock repair, a friend of the Les Paul client brought this Washburn in today, the head stock is completely broken off, I am going to try to attach a pic, I sure do need some suggestions for this one.

[Jerry Stapleton]

Here goes

[Michael Lewis]

This one should be fairly easy. Remove the machines and gently try the fit of the parts. Try to avoid disturbing any splinters or fibers, as they can hold a joint slightly open if they lay across other fibers. Hot hide glue and clamp it well over night. Since this one has all the surface open you can get glue where it is needed, and it should be a very solid repair.

The idea is to get the parts joined and solid, and let it dry a few days before you attempt any finish work.

[Jerry Stapleton]

Thanks Mike!

[Jerry Stapleton]

I have finished the repair, I hope to post a couple of photos soon.

[Jerry Stapleton]

finished repair

[Jerry Stapleton]

the back

[Jason Rodgers]

You put the reflection in the photos just above the break, but it looks good. Did you touch-up the finish?

Looks like you just became known for fixing headstock breaks. Time to think over your pricing!

[Mark Wybierala]

Very nice sir. Its a real warm fuzzy when things work out that way. I get all giddy and buy myself a ribeye.

I recently did the same with an Epiphone Les Paul with a similar headstock departure. The finish was solid black. I had repaired this guitar in the past for the same thing about two years previous. I used Titebond. This time the break wasn't more than 1/8" from the previous repair but the client was honest and told me the guitar took another fall.

I had a problem this time. Again using Titebond, I achieved a very good clamping and alignment and a three day curing period. I needed to preserve the headstock overlay so I tediously addressed the fracture line with black CA, a small thin pass with very thin black tinted lacquer and a top coat over the entire headstock face with clear gloss. Some of the original polyurethane chips from the back side of the break were missing so again I used Black CA and I totally finished the back of the neck with gloss clear lacquer after a prep with 400 grit sandpaper to the body/neck joint. The witness line between the poly and the lacquer was quite hard to see under very close inspection. When I strung up the guitar and tuned to pitch, a hairline appeared on back of the neck. I manipulated the headstock to see if the hairline would expand while putting forward and back force on the headstock but the joint held solid under a significant stress. Only because I could, I readdressed the hairline on the back as I would a scratch in the black finish using black CA. It just reappeared as a hairline again the next day. Either I have some sort of contamination in the finish or it might be that my black CA is getting old. Maybe there was residual Titebond in the fracture line or there may be a secondary fracture - dunno. Cosmetics was not a priority on this job and the client and I had agreed in advance that there may be a scar from the repair and also that the repair may not even be sound due to the previous damage. In short, I was trying to show off to the client going beyond the budget on my own time. To make things right, I wrote up a six month warranty for the headstock to remain in place just in case it let go. It goes without saying that I'd honor the repair even without the warranty but with it, it doesn't matter who is working the front desk of the shop if the guitar returns.

[Jerry Stapleton]

I understand putting in the extra time Mark, this could never be my day job because its seems that every repair becomes personal and I wind up putting more time into the work than I can charge for, although it seems that I can never get the perfect repair that we all strive for. I guess you could just call it for the love of the game! In this case I had to do some inlay work just to hide and distract from the break line! lol !