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Broke one of my rules today, stay out of bars and guitar shops, you never know what will follow you home

This looks to be a piece of cake for what it is, my plan is HHG preheat and clamp. it returns and looks pretty good when closed up. Little bit of touch up and I'm a hero. Older guy, this was his main gigging instrument for years, lots of memories. He left it in a guitar stand on stage and when he came back, he had a Gibson with a broken headstock.

Oh, yeah - looks like an easy glue and clamp up. Biggest job will be touching up the finish. Have fun with it.

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

"Well, well, well..." sounds like Bunny in Apocalypse Now....

Yup that's where they break and pretty timely since we were singing the praises of guitar stands..... not.

Looks pretty straight forward too.

I have a customer's Les Paul with an almost identical break and am following a similar repair approach. I was thinking Titebond II, but on second thought I believe your approach is better and will use HHG as well. Those Gibsons do help pay the bills!

Titebond II is not an appropriate glue for guitar repair, except in limited situations.

HHG is my first choice, Titebond extend, Titebond original.

This is a good place for HHG since your clamping time is very quick, unlike a complete headstock separation which is often kind of fiddly to get it jigged up after applying the glue. If I need a bit more working time I'll use Titebond (original). If the break is really bad I'll spline it or throw a back strap on it but like this one where the headplate is holding everything in alignment I'll trust the glue (after all, its just a scarf joint, right?). Had a Guild 12 string a while back that I used both a carbon fiber spline and a back plate - two years later its still holding fine.

The biggest problem, and I'll be interested in how you handle this, is the cosmetics. Since its a Gibbie its probably nitro which makes it easier but I usually tell customers with poly finishes that the joint will be strong but they will be able to see it. Might serve to remind them to put the guitar back in the case when they're done...











how about a bajo sexto



a vihuela



and a banjo

If you do a search here and on FRETS for the "Collins head stock jig" you will see examples of implementations for jigs that clamp broken headstocks in all directions at the same time. These are widely used now by many of the biggest repair shops and they make these repairs stupid easy to do except for as Freeman rightly says the touch-up can be the hard part.

Most of the time our repairs (with Dave's jig) are invisible and can't be felt either. But as mentioned with some finishes it will show unless you black burst it a bit.

We just did the second break on a Grammar guitar where we have repaired it once before several years ago. It broke in a new place confirming that a well done headstock repair should be stronger than the original unscathed headstock.

Frreman

What did you do to the Yamaha? Looks like a tough one.

Ed

Glued her up last Saturday, unclamped everything got the break cleaned up and was doing some light flexing and the SOB broke again!
After recovering I did a through inspection, the second break was new wood just up the neck shaft from the original break. So we reglued with HHG and strung her up this morning, so far so good. On to the finish repair.

Yay!!! Very well done my friend!!!!

Looks good. Let us know how the finish repair turns out.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Sure will, I'm working today OT so might get started tomorrow

That must have been a gut drop when the second fracture opened!

Just about finished with the refinish. The owner requested that I knock the shine off the neck. These Mirlon/Mirka grey pads do nicely for less shine. Hand wear will have it polished out in no time so I'll leave him a pad in the case. The ColorTone black nitrocellulose lacquer from Stew Mac is great for a minor touch up

Beautiful!!! You do great work Greg!!!

Well done.

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

Looks great.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Where'd it go? Looks like it just disappeared!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Very well done!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Finished with the re-finish, new strings ready to go. Owner requested a satin finish on the neck, this was achieved with a Mirlon grey 1500 pad. The Stew Mac Black ColorTone worked great plus two coats of clear.

Nice job!
Always loved the "tire iron" pockets Gilson put under their T/R covers...

I was thinking more along the lines of Alex, "Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well. Another broken Gibby Gib Aye!"

My wife bought me a headstock-broken Les Paul Studio (brand new) for Christmas about 10-12 years ago on eBay. I'll try to dig up some pictures.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker