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My wife owns a Alvarez Professional 12 string guitar that she bought used, for what she describes as "not very much money" , years before I had any interest in guitars. It has been stored in a spare bedroom. As my interest in guitar playing and building has grown I decided to have a look at it. Unfortunately, it appears to have suffered some humidity related issues.

There are two cracks that extend from the bridge to the end. Both cracks have been repaired before and have had cleats glued across them on the inside. One remains fairly tight (although it doesn't look like any finish repair was attempted) but the other has opened fairly wide at the surface with a bit of puckering. You can very clearly see the glue in the crack that was used for the last repair The back side seems to still be pretty tight. I have done quite of browsing around, here and elsewhere, on how best to treat this but haven't really found anything to dealing with an already repaired crack. Pushing from the underside I can't really open the crack any wider than it already is. Now the question: what's the best way to handle this so it doesn't get any worse? Since it doesn't seem like I would be able to close up the crack I'm not sure how best to go about it based on what other advice I could find.

(click for larger image)



And the reason I hope my wife didn't spend much on this guitar, another previous repair:


Given the nature of that last repair I'm not inclined to put too much effort into this

You may have to remove the bridge to do it right but it's hard to know without looking. Since it's reopened and all crudded up with glue I would saw open the crack with a back saw or use a very sharp razor knife and remove a sliver out from each side of the crack. So now you have an open crack about 1mm wide (or less). Then drop in a perfectly fitting piece of spruce preferable the same kind with the same color, Hot hide glue is best here but Titebond will work well also. Some times it's a good idea to have a slight wedge profile to the spruce graft so it fits in real tight.

The fretboard top crack looks like a nasty one since it has moved out of place. Can you reset the crack by bending the neck a little? If so I would reset it and glue a brace right under it and then fill it in with a graft as mentioned before.

Top cracks can typically be closed back up simply by rehumidifying. Of course since it's been contaminated by a poor reglue before, a future simple reglue will be poor as well. Proper repair for this may be a spline depending on how contaminated with old glue the crack is.

The crack by the fingerboard extension is not just a dryness crack, that is the guitar imploding. The shoulders are caving in, neck block is shifting forward, and it's dying a slow death. Real world practicality, neither of these problems are worth having repaired properly on that particular guitar. I have a similar case in the shop right (on an instrument of a bit more value and worth preserving), and I have that estimate written up at about $1200 so far. This guitar will not be worth putting all that in to of course.

Quick and appropriate fix - rehumidify the top, work glue in to the top crack, put a long cross grain patch on the inside (back center graft style). You may be able to pry the neck angle back a bit to re-align the top at the extension, but probably not by much. Reinforce that with cleats, braces, whatever you feel is necessary.

Beyond that, any further money or effort invested in this guitar would be better diverted to a slush fund to go toward a replacement. Chances are good there are many other issues you may not have noticed so quickly. This one may get you by for a little while with minimal investment, but more than that would probably be throwing money down a hole.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

The lower bout crack needs a splint type repair job, What worries me the crack at the FB extension and sound hole. It appears that the top is loose from the FB extension, at least I am hoping so. Because if it is not then the neck and fretboard along with this piece of top has moved inward about 3mm which would lead me to believe the neck has issues as well.

Alvarez professional series are not Yairi's by any means but they are the midline of the basic Alvarez product line and are solid wood guitars! But have a relitivly low resell value. This guitar has a retail value (new) of about $700, and are bought day in and day out for $250-300 in pawn shops in good condition. I have picked up older needed work but playable PJ85s for as little as $150

This guitar need professional repair. I am guessing it will need about $250 worth at best and maybe as much as $500 or more if indeed the neck is tilting inward

The lower bout crack really needs the bridge removed the crack cleaned and prepped for a splint put in to fill the opening and a graft underneath to stabilize.

A splint repair is not that difficult to do so with a little help I am sure you could pull that off , but the upper sound hole problem need to be looked at to see if the neck has issue first.

So the question comes if you go to an experienced repairman and he tell you it will cost more than $250 what are you going to do?

Since this guitar has entered its death spiral, as described by David Collins, i think his advice to give it a basic repair and let it limp out the rest of its life is appropriate.

I have a (worth fixing) imploding neck block guitar with a host of other problems in right now also, estimated at $1,400. This is what we call major surgery.

Unfortunately, even if you just patch it up temporarily, the foreward shifting of the neck will probably wreak havoc on the intonation, and make it difficult to maintain decent action.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Michael B. it's not ticking by any chance is it?

Thanks for all of the great replies!

@Hesh: not ticking...yet

The repair along the neck, appearances aside, is quite rigid. I can't induce an movement there by flexing the neck at all And the fingerboard appears to be adhering well to the body. There is a heavy bead of brittle glue (horse hide? the same stuff is in the crack that has re-opened) along side the neck. If the current condition is the result of a legitimate repair it makes you wonder why they didn't re-align things...looks like something I might have attempted, although I probably would have used super glue (okay, maybe back before it occurred to me that I could have built a guitar).

I think i'm in the "death spiral" school of thought on this one. My wife claims it sounds fine...given how often she plays it, that works for me.

I'll look into the procedure for doing a splint type of repair. Is this crack too wide for a repair such as this (using titedbond):

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Guitar-Makin ... ht-top.htm

A splint is a wedge shaped insert piece that is fitted to the open crack no it is not to wide as it is but the opening must be cleaned up with a splint knife. The splint will be taller than the thickness of the top plate and grain orientation is to match the top. The wedge shape allows for the splint to fit the cleaned up crack with a bit of interference fit. Once the glue is fully cured the splint is shaved and scraped to level with the top plate.

Properly splinting a crack is one of the hardest repairs. Avoid it on this guitar if possible. As David said, humidify and then glue, and then back up with a cross grain strip. Don't worry if the crack is still visible, the backup strip will keep it from going anywhere. Don't take the bridge off, either. This isn't the restoration of some vintage Martin.

The fingerboard extension is still glued to the top. This is a common issue--it can result from a blow (falling back on the headstock) or from heat causing the upper transverse brace to separate from the top. Sometimes the head block may have come loose from the sides or top, too. By itself it doesn't indicate any neck issues, but the neck angle has likely come up. Frank Ford's site shows a couple of repairs for this problem. But if you can't flex it and make it move, and the action is playable, I'd suggest you forget cosmetics and just get a big patch under the crack.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.