Hi newbie needs help.

[John Rennie]

Hi folks. This is my first post so bare with me. I was walking home from a friends on Saturday night in the rain when i slipped on some mud, i landed right on top of my soft case which i was carrying on my back and here are the results, sorry the pics are not great but it gives you an idea of the damage done.

[John Rennie]

Just wondering if anything can be done, i have access to a woodworking shop at my work, although the guitar wasnt very expensive, about £450 i dont want to scrap it.

[Barry Daniels]

You can glue it back together.

[John Rennie]

yeah i know but will i need to take the top or the back off the guitar to glue it.The back of the guitar is split along the binding as well but i couldnt get a good photo also i need to get a good look inside to see if anything else is broken.

[Barry Daniels]

Should not be necessary to remove back. Lots of repairs are done through the soundhole. There are special tools to apply glue to the cracks, clamping parts into alignment, and then there are the finish touchup issues. But you can make do with what you have. Just have to be creative.

[Chuck Tweedy]

That broken back brace is a bit scary. Also is the brace that has pulled out from under the lining and is now on top of the lining.
The cracks in the plates are very fixable.

Either the brace wood has extreme runout (and I'm talking EXTREME), or that brace just snapped in half.
Getting those braces back in good shape is the challenge of this job.
If you have never done this before, John, then you will need to either spend a lot of time learning and practicing, or get a pro to do it.

[Ryan Mazzocco]

I don't know... if that's a good brace that just broke in half I would expect to see a lot more of a jagged edge and rough looking break. that break looks pretty clean, like it just split along the grain; meaning it was never good to start with. If that's the case I would replace the whole brace... but then I would have to assume that the rest of the braces are the same and they also need replaced.
I cant see the grain direction in the picture. Can you take a look at the braces, (the broken one as well as the rest) and tell us what the grain orientation looks like? It's kinda hard to see runout... but I'm with Chuck on this one.

[Chuck Tweedy]

The pulled-out brace is (was) a good one, or it would never have survived the contortion.

[Ryan Mazzocco]

but did it pull out or just break off under the lining? that's what I can't tell from the picture.

[Chuck Tweedy]

Good point.

[John Rennie]

Hey guys thanks for the replies. The back brace has just popped out of the lining and is intact as far as i can tell, the middle brace is a clean break that has gone with the grain, but i could get my friend at work to make me a new one. Not sure about the top of the guitar tho, Does this mean that i'll have to take the back of the guitar?

[Ryan Mazzocco]

John. No, as Barry said... most repairs can be done through the soundhole. It can be a little tricky for someone that has never attempted before, but if you have even just a bit of wood working experience you can probably do what needs to be done here. It will just be awkward and probably take longer than it would a pro.
A good brace is not just cut down to dimension and shaped. it needs to be cut on it's split face and quartered.
You will need to clean the surface for regluing (sand off existing glue from the back plate as well as the bottom side of the brace.) You can use Titebond original glue. apply a healthy dose under the brace using your finger, a detail paint brush, a stiff piece of paper, a popsicle stick, or whatever you can find to get the glue under there.
To clamp it in place you can use something like a piece of wood or popsicle stick or something to wedge between the top plate and the brace. It's a good idea to clamp the outside of the guitar too so as not to put too much outward pressure on the guitar body.
as barry said, they make special tools for all of this to do the job faster and more efficiently, but you probably don't want to invest in all of that just to fix this one guitar. You can do the job with what you have available to you just fine.
Titebond is easy water cleanup.

[John Rennie]

Thanks Ryan, i do have access to a woodworking shop at my work and i can get some help and advice from the technicians there. i also have a camera that i can put inside the guitar to see if there is any more damage to the inside. maybe something positive will come of this...........a pair of shoes with better grips on them would be a start.

[Tom Clift]

Yes please, more pics are always helpful.

A bit of advice: When you've decided how to proceed, practice what you are about to do a few times dry, with no glue, til you know how all the various parts of the operation work and you can do it smoothly. I've often run into unforeseen problems and been glad that there was no glue clean-up involved.

[Clay Schaeffer]

"pair of shoes with better grips on them would be a start."

Or maybe a simple hard shell case made from 1/2 inch plywood....