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Hello forum! New user here needs advice. Guitar is a Washburn BT-3 Maverick series. It's a buddies of mine that has been a wall decoration for some time. When asked about why it never is played I get very ambiguous answers. I think I know why now. Have a look at the pix. Seems as though this axe took quite an impact to the tremolo, which in turn cracked the routed area (where the tremolo attaches) almost completely out of the guitar. I had an Ibanez of mine repaired years ago by a professional. It fell face down on a vinyl floor and broke the neck where the locking nut attaches. To this day that guitar is rock solid and you can barely see where the repair is. My buddy has already told me he has "NO" budget for parts, and honestly, it probably doesn't need any. Just some well placed beads of wood glue and a clamp. Where do I start with this? How do I get the wood spread apart without breaking it further to get glue in the cracks? Or is this guitar body a lost cause and not worth taking the time to repair? Since my buddy has no budget, I mostly don't either. I don't mind buying something that will help me this time around, and if I run across something similar in the future, but since I already bought the mis-matched saddle on eBay for this axe, my budget for a guitar that isn't even mine is pretty much done also. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions, tips, help etc.

Also, I included pix of the neck plate area. Has anyone seen this area look sunken at the corners of the plate? I'm at a complete loss on that one...

EDIT: Sorry, no neck plate pix. Had too many others!

Neck plate pix! Weird, huh?

Should this thread be under restoration and repair rather than building forum? Help?

Wow! That thing took a serious lick.

I would use Titebond or other yellow aliphatic glue, watered down a bit so it will wick into the cracks. If you have a syringe with a large needle, that would work. I get mine from the local veterinarian supply.

As for clamps - you would need a Jorgensen or Pony clamp. Run one jaw through the hole for the sustain block, and clamp it down once you've worked as much glue into the cracks as you can. Use some kind of pad to reduce crushing the wood and cracking the paint. I use blocks of wood, or squares of masonite between the jaws and the body. Sometimes I "pump" the loosened wood while adding glue - it helps suck it down into the fibers.

Hope this is enough info!
Good luck with the glue-up job.

If the glue job fails.... well, one thing at a time.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Like Chris said, thin out the glue and work the crack open and closed to draw the glue in.Work out your clamp arrangement prior to applying any glue and make sure they pull it tight. I line my cauls with clear packing tape so they don't wind up glued to the guitar I am working on.

The neck plate thing is pretty common. It is caused by over tightening the neck screws. They are not the lug nuts on an 18 wheeler, they do not need to be torqued to 75 ft/lbs.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Thanks for the responses, I kinda figured it would be a tedious process of just working the glue in there and clamping it. I didn't know you could thin wood glue though. That would seem to be a huge help. Is the bond just as secure thinned down as it would be "full strength"?

my hunch is, deep down inside he really doesn't like playing guitar, and he probably had a tantrum and smashed it. i assure you anyone who loves playing guitars would A)be trying to fix it ASAP and B)wouldn't lie about why it is broken!

A couple drops will be fine. Remember you can always add more. Don't get carried away, and the clamped joint should be good to go.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

The neck plate thing is common, the soft body wood often compresses a bit when the neck plate was installed. It might not be the lug nut of a 18 wheeler but if the neck doesn't sit level in its pocket weird problems will result. Just tightening to the required tightness often compresses the wood. I've seen it on many Fender solidbody guitars. Some manufacturers will put a piece of rubber under the neck plate to mitigate this problem.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
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He has an acoustic that I think he likes playing more. But sometimes ya just GOTTA have an electric.

This guitar has a plastic "buffer" (?) under the neckplate. Doesn't appear it did much good.

I'm just sitting down getting ready to put some more time into this. I'll photo document and let ya all see what happens.

And thanks again to everybody for all the input!

OK, hopefully my handiwork will put this axe back in action. As I was sitting looking at this thing, wondering how to pry the crack open to get glue into it, thinking to myself "If I only had something to open it a little at a time and hold it there..." it hit me. Use a screw! (Two, actually.) I scored an old hypo syringe (sans needle) from my parents. I trimmed off the threaded collar where the needle would've screwed in. Mostly did that in case there was a tight spot I needed to finagle it into and didn't want to run into clearance issues part way into it. I filled it with full strength wood glue and went to town. The worst damage where the wood had actually separated seemed to be on the tremolo arm side of the tremolo, so thats the area I opened up and glued. I used a toothpick to push the glue in, as well as used the screws as levers to "pump" the crack ever so gently and work the glue in. Then I clamped it. Is the 3' bar clamp overkill? Yes indeed, but it was all I had. So now I let it sit overnight and hopefully put 'er back together tomorrow. Check out the pix.

More pix...

I know I'm a little late in the game but IO've repaired a ton of those. If the break is as bad as that one looks, you migh have considered removing the piece entirely and using the glue full strength. You really can't dilute titebond more than 10% per the directions and I'm not convince that's really fluid enough, although the clamping pressure will hydraulically force some glue further in.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Looks good! The screw was a good idea. Let us know how the job turns out.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I had considered doing just that, removing the section altogether, but that seemed like... I donno, going backwards? Although, there are smaller cracks that got no glue at all, just the worst of it, I opted for the "less is more" approach. Regardless, I'd rather experiment on a buddys guitar (who doesn't seem to be missing it too much as it was) than someone who was expecting it to be done a certain way in exchange for compensation.

I'd hang it back up on the wall.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Sometimes you gotta make it worse before you can make it better. I just repaired a crack in the side of a mahogany Taylor, it was about 3 inches long to begin with. I was having trouble with the dry run getting the edges to mate cleanly due to tension in the wood. I actually popped the crack to 5 inches, and was able to spread the work the glue in better, position the edges together, and clamp it better, so that no sanding was necessary, the edges mated perfectly flush along the whole crack. The finish touch up was easier as a result as well.

If I hadn't opened the crack the way I did then I wouldn't have been able to fix it correctly.

All the little cracks in your guitar that didn't get glue are now weak spots in the wood, not good for a tremelo, IMHO.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Well, most of the smaller cracks that didn't get glue radiated out of a tremolo attachment screw hole, so I figured I'd squirt some glue into the screw holes and then attach the tremolo, working under the assumption running a screw into a glue-filled screw hole will force glue into some of the smaller radiating cracks. Mickey Mouse? Uh, yeah... probably. Will it make it harder to remove those screws in the future? I donno... probably will, yes. But since the tremolo arm is probably long gone I don't think anyone'll be dive bombing with it anytime soon, since the owner didn't have a budget to begin with and likely won't be buying one. In any case, I will certainly mention that when I give it back.

HAH! Good one! But isn't it always better to practice on an imported POS than a fine American made guitar?

Not like I haven't had my share of imports...

But I still respect your opinion.

All back together and rockin', repair seems to be holding, good sustain... Guess ya can't ask for more... for free...

Not a big fan of Strat/clones or single coils in general (unless it's a Tele) but this axe is definitely "Strat-like" in tone.

Thanks everybody, for all the words of advice.

Now I have a guitar to play when I visit my buddy without dragging mine along. Yea!!!

Outstanding!
Glad you got it squared away.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince