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Hello,

My Guitar (Taylor Big Baby) fell over in its case. I opened it up and the headstock was broken. I would like to try to repair it. I have been reading around on the web to try to get an idea of what I am going to have to do. I would, however, like to get some advice from these forums before I go and do anything. I plan on using Titebond glue, because I think that will be the easiest glue for me to obtain. The headstock did not snap off completely, but I read somewhere where a person said you should snap it off the rest of the way before gluing it; however, I am hesitent to do so. Do you think it I should snap it the rest of the way? Also, the truss rod is exposed. I hear that you can melt some wax over it to try to keep the glue from sticking to the rod. Should I use any particular type of wax, or will a typical candle work? See pictures below (sorry that they are a little blurry):

Hmmm...don't think you gonna like what me thinks about this break.

Which is...take it to an experienced professional repair luthier. You might even have to take it to two or three to find one that will tackle it. This is a brake and not your typical crack down the neck. This brake is right on the scarf joint. This is not an easy fix that will last. But is a call form looking at pics.

If it were me...judging by the pics, I would remove it completely and I don't mean snap it off. Then machine slots for carbon fiber insertion strips, glue it up, and then plug the machined slots. use a long grain fiberglass bondo to fill the missing splinters and pray it holds.

Another approach would be to remove the head stock, thin the head stock down to half its thickness, then flatten the back upper part of the neck like a wedge, glue the headstock back on and laminate several layers of thin mahogany plates on to the back and the head stock...literally building up a "plywood" back, carve reshape and refinish.

And I bet there gonna be a few more opinions on how to handle this type of a break.

Thats my 2 cents...any you others got a take on this break.

Unless you and experience wood butcher/luthier, take it to a pro.


Blessings
the
Padma

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This is a big project for a $300 guitar. You might get it functional by routing in two tenons on the back side.

I don't mean to be cold but my first thought was to play my all carbon fiber Cargo travel guitar. I've had a Baby Taylor and a Little Martin but compared to the CA Cargo they don't make it.

Steve

Man, sorry to hear it - I do agree with Padma that that is one ugly break....
The problem in my part of the country is that an experienced luthier is going to charge some serious $$ for that kind of a fix. Not sure where you are, but it may be the same.
I'd suggest finding a good local repair/luthier. See what the estimate is.....if the estimate is more than the value of the Big Baby Taylor', then you've got nothing to lose. Go for it.
You could do a bit of archaeological restoration on that and get it playable again. Titebond is fine. I had a similar experience with a 310 - neighbor "sat on it", totally cracking the neck off. I looked for a replacement neck, couldnt find one - finally gave up and carefully glued the broken parts together (had to fabricate a piece of mahogany to support the neck construction) - but, bottom line, the guitar's fine. Great action, good tone.
As for the wax - interesting notion - maybe a good idea. maybe just rub a bit of bees wax on the parts that are going to touch the glue.
You'll want to be pretty careful with a jig or clamps to glue it as close to "prebreak" as possible.

You'll get advice from others more experienced than I - the only thing I'd suggest is not to avoid fixing it yourself if it's too expensive for a luthier to fix it.

I'm going to be the odd voice here and say that it does look ugly, but a good repair man can fix it quick and easy. Find someone who has done a thousand of them. It shouldn't cost too much, unless you want it all refinished and perfect looking, finish will double the price.

I would get it warm and flood it with hot hide glue and work it back together, it may not even need a clamp. I wouldn't take it apart unless it fell apart.

I don't think you should do it, unless you are willing to trash it.

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hi i was wondering if any one made a jig/ clamping system
for repairing this ?

thanks for the tip David about warming the wood first
i take it that it would
be best to use a low heat for a long time ?

can you feel down the neck a bit (say the 2nd fret)
and know when the heat is penetrated ?

makes me more willing to do a similiar job
thanks again
tomas

There is no scarf joint there. A typical result of a guitar falling off a stand(usually). You should carefully reglue the break. I'd use hide glue. It will show up less than most glues. DO NOT use CA glue. It is not reversible,and does not last forever. For a HOME repair,get some liquid hide glue. Look on the bottle and find the expiration date. It will not dry if too old. It is smartest to glue up some other wood first as a test. Set the glue bottle down in a pot of hot water. This makes the syrupy glue VERY THIN (and runny !). Don't worry. You can wipe the hide glue off very cleanly with damp cloths,NOT PAPER TOWELS. The joint should push back together IF there are no loose splinters or crud in the joint. The joint will be difficult to clamp. You may be able to wrap string tightly around the neck at the 1st. fret,so he string catches on the fret. Wind several times there,and then run some turns of the string out around the end of the peghead. You don't need much pressure. You could try wrapping the string over some rubber bands tightly to secure them. Loop the rubber bands through themselves so they can't pull loose,and pull them over the end of the peghead. The rubber bands that broccoli comes banded together with are good. BE SURE to make certain these bands are NOT pulling the peghead out of line with its true position,opening the crack. I SUGGEST A DRY RUN,always.

You could sand down the back of the peghead after you reglue it,and glue on some black veneer,carefully trimming it down to blend with the neck where it starts turning to its round contour. I suggest 2 layers of veneer because veneers are so thin these days. It used to be 1/28",but these days is likely 1/40" thick. Put on 1 layer,trim it,and glue on a second layer. Use hide glue. It can be washed off clean where it squeezes out,even after it is dry,if you try to get most of it when you have clamped it down.

Needless to say,getting ALL the finish off the flat back of the peghead is essential. Getting 100% glue contact-no gaps- is also very important.

This is one of those cases where you can minimize the appearance of the repair by making the peghead look like it was veneered to begin with. Also,the veneer will cover the worst part of the crack.

If you can sand the back of the peghead till it has a definite flat area around its edge where the neck becomes round,it will be pretty essential to accomplish that,too.

If you can manage to neatly trim the veneer around the edges of the peghead with a VERY sharp knife,WITHOUT cutting the original finish,you will be much better off. You can apply a simple to apply finish,such as Tru Oil,wiped on with a ball of cloth. It will look nice after several coats. I say Tru Oil if you are not an experienced repairman. It would be easiest for a home repair,and quite glossy. You can carefully wipe it around the edges of the veneer also.

If you like these sugestions,write thank you on a $50.00 bill,and send it to me!!

Gee George,

Your right, there ain't no scarf joint there...I had to take a better look.

Ummm, I would much prefer to see about a half dozen layers of veneer, each one with the grain slightly crossing...to obtain the strength of Plywood effect...Don't think I would trust just 2 layers.


What I tell ya Acid, you gonna get several different opinions. And you know they are all valid.


blessings
the
Padma

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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I had to repair a break in the same place on my Gibson ES335 about 20 years ago. My break, the result of the guitar being dropped while my grandfather still owned it, was much cleaner than yours. The headplate veneer, like yours, was still attached. Here is what I did:

First, my headstock went back together very easily. So my dry run was good and clean. I used, and would recommend, epoxy. Don't use cheap stuff. I used West System. The reason for using epoxy is that it is gap filling. So if there are small voids in the wood the glue will still grab. Also, you have a lot of end grain, titebond is very poor on end grain, epoxy will bond better in that area. Hide glue may work as well but only if you can get everything very tightly back together, hide glue is not gap filling.

To clamp my joint together I actually used the weight of the guitar as the clamp. I simply clamped the headstock to the bench and let the guitar hinge on the headstock veneer to close the gap. Worked great!

Your break looks nastier. I would be cautious about attempting a "dry run" on yours. It looks like every thing is pretty shredded so I would be afraid that I could get it together once but when I opened it up again to get glue in I would be afraid that things would shift and cause a poorer fit. That is the beauty also with epoxy, you have a much longer working time to get things to slide into place, plus it works as lubricant where as hide glue and tite bond have a higher tack which could lock the joint on you before you had a chance to move things into place.

I hope this helps and good luck with it. Please let us know what you decide to do and how it turned out.

Shane

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Canada

Thanks for all of the advice guys.


I may call around and see if I can find any repair shops that would be willing to try to fix it for me. But I cannot deny that my hands are itching to try to fix it myself.


How would you go about removing it? It looks to me like the only thing holding it on is the top veneer layer. Would I need to/how would I peal that off?


Yeah, that is one reason I am thinking of removing the whole thing before trying to glue it. It looks like if I try to force it back together like it is, some wood will chip because I would be pushing it together like a lever (which pivots on the top veneer layer). I am thinking I may have more of a chance of getting it back together if I were to remove the whole thing and push the two pieces straight together (instead of a lever motion).


I am not sure if I can get that specific epoxy anywhere around here. Would the stuff I can find at a hardware store be good? It looks to me like I will need a gap filling glue because, as I look at it, it is hard for me to imagine me getting the whole thing back together without at least some small wood chips falling out.
What do you mean by "end grain"?


What would occur if I left some of the finish on?

Thanks again for your help guys. I greatly appreciate it.

Just get a decent 2 part epoxy, cold cure is one, Z-poxy is another and there are others. DO NOT use 5 minute or 20 minute epoxies. You can clean up epoxy with alcohol based solvents, like lacquer thinner (they won't touch the polyester finish that Taylor uses). Me, I wouldn't remove the headstock entirely unless I really had to. I would use what ever structure is left to help line things up. I would gently try to bend the headstock back into place and see if it looks like it is going to go (I probably wouldn't set it all the way in place without glue for the reasons I mentioned earlier but I would put a bit of pressure on to see what my chances of success in going all the way might be).

I wouldn't worry about any of the finish unless you do plan on puttung on a back veneer, which may be good "insurance" once you have the neck back in place and glued. If you don't remove the finish you risk a poor bond and your are then gluing the veneer to the finish on the headstock rather than the wood of the headstock itself. That may be OK though as the finish is bonded well to the wood already. Still, if it were me, I would remove the finish and bond wood to wood.

Shane

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Canada

Finger joints should be save for cheap cutting boards.

Let me add that I'm sorry this happened to you especially if its your only guitar. Me i would try to fix it myself like others mentioned. If not I would ebay this as a luthier project and take what I get for it plus what i would have spent on a repairman and get yourself something other then a Taylor. They are notorious for broken headstocks because of this cheap finger joint. Get yourself a Yamaha or something else.

I lust saw this and was going to say the same thing as Todd, get in touch with Taylor or a Taylor dealer and see if they can get you a new neck. I replaced several baby/big baby necks when i worked in an authorized taylor repair shop. Like Todd says, takes about 5 minutes!

If you fix it, be prepared to trash it like David Newton said, although it may come out fine, there is plenty of room for disaster.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

On the replacement neck - I had the same experience with my 310, and had no luck getting a replacement neck from Taylor, as I'm not an authorized Taylor dealer.

And at any rate, the replacement cost for a neck for the 310 was about $800, postage included, etc. Clearly priced to discourage this kind of activity.

One option is to find a replacement neck from a "project guitar" on ebay - if you run a search on ebay over time for Baby Taylor "project" guitar or some such, you might get lucky.

I ran my search for months without getting a hit that was right for the guitar, and then finally glued it. I think you can fix it - all the other good advice you got is great - with respect to all the other good advice (and I'm a fan of hide glue) I'm going to change my advice and go with the epoxy suggestion. With that break your going to need some gap filling capability somewhere. I think epoxy is best for filling gaps. Just be careful with the truss rod - you don't want epoxy on it/in it or it will be totally useless. you may think about trying to wrap it in wax paper or something if you can get to it.
Good luck.

I have repaired similar .. and quick and easy it is not. You can see this broke right above the fingerjoint, which is amazingly strong. Unfortunately Taylor likes the headstock truss rod access ala Gibson, which means this happens a lot when they fall.

There is practically no long grain fiber in the area for the repair, and even epoxy likely wont hold it for the long run. The break is almost vertical .... it WILL need some reinforcement.

What I did was to titebond the break back together to get it to at least hold. Then I made a jig to route two slots on the back of the neck and headstock, along side the truss rod, into which I put pieces of african blackwood (it was dark neck, and I didnt want to do any finish work). You could also use CF, but working it afterwards will be tough. These were put in with titebond again, which is nice because it doesnt stick to finish, and cleaned up quite well afterwards. The owner loved it.

That guitar held great until the owner dropped it again 2 years later. My repair held perfectly, but it then snapped above my splines, mid headstock. I had to put in two more.

See if you can find another broken one, but with the neck intact. swap them out.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Thats it...the magical words of intent...the drive from deep with inside the being. This is why it will work for you, no matter which method you gonna use.

Go for it dude.


blessings
the
Padma

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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I advise again to use hide glue. Epoxy is non reversible,and if you mess up,you're done. Also,epoxy can get harder over time,until it suddenly snaps under tension. When I was a teenager,and stupid,I glued bridges on a few guitars with epoxy. I was siting sideways on the sofa some time later and the bridge popped off and hit me in the back. It did have 100% glue coverage,too. I couldn't really get the hardened epoxy out of the 2 surfaces,so re glued the bridge with epoxy. It happened again months later.

It is possible that you could get by without veneering the back of the peghead. I have reglued several broken off necks without doing that. But,do use hide glue,not something you cannot re do. And DO use a dry run. Do you want to discover that the joint WON'T go back together AFTER you have put glue in the joint? What is the point in that? You are listening to a 54 year veteran builder.

With all do respect George, I don't have 54 years experience in guitar work, but I have been tinkering with them for over 30 years and have 30 years full on woodworking experience and quite a bit of experience with different glues in different applications. First of all, pretty much all glues (maybe not polyurethane so much) are reversible. In fact, hide glue has a higher resistance to heat than epoxy, much higher actually. You can remove epoxy quite easily with heat and that is why it is probably not a great choice for bridges (hot cars, living room windows, etc), that and the 'creep' factor. But I would suggest that no matter what glue you put in the mess of that break is not going to be reversible without doing other damage to things like the fretboard and finish. If the repair does not go well on the first try then you will be resorted to removing the headstock and likely making another and reshaping it (which is actually not a bad option as well, using a proper scarf joint and the glue of you choice). Still, my epoxy repaired Gibson ES335 has shown no sign at all of failure in 25 years, but it is an electric with a lower string tension than an acoustic steel string.

Anyway, Acid. The neat thing about these forums is that you get a lot of different opinions and you are left to sort out what makes sense to you with your tools, confidence and skill set. I say try to fix it (I know the method I would use! ) and if that does not work, then cut a scarf joint and glue on a new headstock. It may be your first step to building an entire guitar.

Good Luck!

Shane

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Canada

Hey Acid, if you are confident enough to take this repair on I just wanted to add that if it does fail sooner or later, you could always try your hand at carving a new neck yourself. It won't cost you $800 and you may have some real fun doing it. It might be possible to salvage the fingerboard (with frets) and the head plate possibly too. Good luck with it!!

Alright, I finally found some time to make some progress on this. I went ahead and glued the neck with epoxy. I had to snap the headstock off entirely to get it to go back together because it wouldnt go back together when I tryed to 'pry' it back into position with the headstock still attached. I think it actually worked quite well. I got it clamped very tightly using my...shoelaces. Essentially I made one big loop slip knot and then pulled it very tight with a quick grip clamp (see photos below). I am not entirely comfortable putting the strings back on as it is right now. I am thinking of adding some more support.

One of you guys suggested veneering the back. I am considering doing this, but the veneer would only cover a little of the crack (see my rather crude drawing below where the shaded part of the neck represents the veneer), so how much extra support do you think it would add?

No Veneer


Veneer


Or, I am considering milling out two channels and gluing wooden square dowels in the channels and then shaving them down so they blend into the neck. However, I would have to put the dowels to the left and right of the truss rod, and the neck isnt very thick there. So I am not sure about that. See picture below:


And some more pictures:




One chip is sticking out a little in this one...



The clamp etc:

Y0, the Acid,

Nice job.

Now quite fussin over it and string her up.


blessings
the
Padma

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Very nice repair Jonathan!
That worked great for you. I also think I would just go ahead and string it up, I bet it works fine.

Joe

Indeed, it works great!

I put extra light strings on it because I didn't want to put too much stress on the joint. However, the action was extremely low (I suppose because the truss rod was set for the higher tension strings that I have used in the past). So I swapped them with some medium guage strings, and it works perfectly, not to mention that I like the higher tension strings quite a bit more.

Thanks for your help guys.

Cool Jonathan. You had lots of glue surface there. I think that you would be fine. No splines should be required.

Good job!

Shane

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Canada