Repairing a Broken Headstock

image.jpg image.jpg Needless to say I wasn't at all happy about it, and when I asked the seller if he insured it he said no because he couldn't afford it as the shipping was $133. I told him he was responsible so he agreed to give me a $50 refund to cover repairs and materials needed. So I found "Do It Best" online and ordered everything from them. See above, gee ya think I'll. have enough?
 
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There, that should do it. Kinda looks like an S&M thing, yeah, you know you like it.

Notice the way the string is wound thru the tuning post, twice? Talk about a nightmare, and I don't have needle nose pliers anymore so I had to use a small screwdriver to take them off. In total it took about a 1/2 hour to get take them all off!
 
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Too bad it wasn't a Les Paul. They're noted for staying in tune better after a headstock repair.

But I've never had the desire to snap them off my Les Paul's and find out if that's true.
 
Thought I had taken a picture of that little chip of binding but guess I forgot. It was a bitch to figure out which way it fit in there, but I got it.
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First time I've bought 1/2" masking tape in ages. I used 4 pieces.
 
Can you believe that was only 8 rubberbands? Hey I know, I'll put em back in the box and return them... Nah, I couldn't do that, especially after hearing all the returns stories when I was working for Home Depot. Like people returning used toilets. Ha, we had an assistant manager who was a total germophobe who had to deal with that one. He picked up the toilet to see what was wrong with it... man I thought he was for sure going to throw up. You never saw someone run to the restroom so fast to wash his hands :D. Oh, and people buying lawnmowers in the spring and returning them in the fall saying they didn't like it. There were all kind of stories. :rolleyes:o_O:oops::eek::confused::p;) Ok moving on...

image.jpg image.jpgI'll be making a trip downstairs to see what my artist friend can do about that bare wood line in the black ^^. Below is a bit blurry but I think you get the idea, looks like the piece that broke off shrunk a hair, i couldn't get to it any sooner, I had to wait for supplies.
image.jpg image.jpgHmm, after further inspection it feels like the guitar side shrunk, or the piece that broke off grew.^^ image.jpg
She looks good from behind, HA!... DON'T THEY ALL??!!.... ZING!!..... Ahem, anyway, can't complain there ;).
 
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Tension test next! But looks good

Haha yeah! Fortunately once I get the strings up to pitch, I can loosen them after I tighten the locknut. [Actually they're already tight, I just took the 3 strings off so I could get the rubberbands on there better, I could snip them off if I wanted to but that would look peculiar (to me anyway). ;) Have you ever had to take strings off a guitar were the guy that strung it before you wrapped the string through the hole TWICE and pulled it tight with a pair of pliers?! Oh My God were they a bitch to get off, and what the hell for? There's a locknut that's not going to let them go anywhere! You really only need one wrap around the post, tighten the string, tighten the locknut, use the fine tuners and you're done. Although, here's a little tip if you break a lot of strings before their time is up on a Floyd Rose equipped guitar. Wrap the strings around the tuner posts 4 or 5 times, then when you break a string at the bridge where they almost always break, you can let that extra length out and tighten it in the bridge].
 
Too bad it wasn't a Les Paul. They're noted for staying in tune better after a headstock repair.

But I've never had the desire to snap them off my Les Paul's and find out if that's true.

Haha, had my LP fall off the stand at a gig, now that you mention it, it DOES stay in tune better!
 
Haha, had my LP fall off the stand at a gig, now that you mention it, it DOES stay in tune better!

Did the headstock break off? I forget if I mentioned it here but Les Paul's are the number one headstock breakers! I had a friend who didn't use a stand, just leaned it against his amp, broke that headstock 3 times from it falling on its face. Guess who had to fix it? :rolleyes:
 
It's looking good @gigawatt, especially after the touchup! I hope the machine head post fits in the hole snugly though, looking at the last pic the hole seems to be a tiny bit off-round.
 
It's looking good @gigawatt, especially after the touchup! I hope the machine head post fits in the hole snugly though, looking at the last pic the hole seems to be a tiny bit off-round.

Thanks chucma :), I'll know in a few if the machine head fits or not. Yeah I think I glued it about a half milimeter off, you can see it in the logo. :oops:
 
Well @chucma , the tuner fit :), with a little more slop than I'm used to but it'll be ok. Below it are a few bonus pictures; Jackson Football Rules! Go San Dimas! image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg
 
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Beautiful! Well done! Although you really need a better auto-focus on your camera! :D

Thanks again! Yeah idk what's up with my camera lately, it just can't seem to ever get enough light, and when I use the flash, they turn out like this:

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Did the headstock break off? I forget if I mentioned it here but Les Paul's are the number one headstock breakers! I had a friend who didn't use a stand, just leaned it against his amp, broke that headstock 3 times from it falling on its face. Guess who had to fix it? :rolleyes:

Nah, not completely, there was still a bit of wood holding it on, it was bent completely forward though.
 
Spiffy! ..if you should ever run into issues again you can also run pins in though the bottom edge of the headstock which run perpendicular, and through, the break, for extra strength.

You basically drill a couple of tiny holes very-slightly bigger than width of whatever pin you use (a snipped off shank of a regular nail will work), which passes all the way perpendicularly through the break, then you insert your steel pins coated with epoxy resin into the holes you drilled. Make sure the pin is set below the wood-level so you can plug or fill your repair.

Something that musta saved me years of winding strings in tuner posts is - with double locking trems, feed a new string into the tuning machine pointy end first - leaving the ball on the end of the string. The ball on the end of the string acts as a stop in the tuner. ..then just cut to length, and lock the other end of the string into the saddle.

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Years of my life I have saved by doing that! :D ..little to no string slippage during tuning too!
 
Years of my life I have saved by doing that! :D ..little to no string slippage during tuning too!

Ok now you're exaggerating...;) I've done that before, but I use Elixir Nanoweb coated strings since they came out, and the coating doesn't go all the way to the end of the string (opposite the ball end). So putting them on "backwards" leaves a couple inches at the bridge uncoated and in turn unprotected.

Fortunatly this break was an easy fix and with the woodgrain, and only the pressure of the high E and B strings would be on it, so I felt no need for any pins or dowels. If you're a woodworker I'm sure you've heard "a good glue joint is stronger than the wood itself." Plus, about 85% of the pressure coming from the E and B is parallel to the break, except the pressure from being off center as the string line is above the plane of the headstock, forcing the pressure forward and wanting to rip it off! This is what happened when I tightened the strings after the makeshift fix I did with a guitar strap string for acoustics, (I finally figured out where that "shoestring" came from ;)). The break wanted to pull forward, but I was able to hold it back until I got the two strings tight enough so I could lock the locknut. Then it didn't matter so I loosened the strings to let the glue cure until next string change. Another reason I didn't use pins or dowels or even a biscuit was, and this is prolly the biggest reason, is that I don't work in a shop or have the tools anymore :(. This is what divorce can do so stay single guys. ;)

I've also fixed complete breaks at the nut of Les Pauls where there's not a lot of wood there, but the glue still holds, until the guy you fixed it for doesn't use a guitar stand

and instead just leans it against his amp and when it falls, and believe me it does, again, and again, it's gonna break again no matter how you fix it. :eek: Some guys just never learn. o_O:oops:

Once the strings have been tuned up to pitch you don't even need the tuning pegs any more with a Floyd, hell they even make some guitars that don't use the tuning pegs at all. If memory serves the strings have a ball at both ends and changing all six strings takes no more than 5 minutes, and all you use to tune them is the fine tuners. Just one problem, you have to use Floyd's strings, and I haven't seen them around in quite a while so I bet that was a big deal breaker for a lot of playa's, I know it was for me, I gotta have my Elixirs! :D Plus with Floyd equipped guitars going out of style for Wilkenson trems or no trem at all, no string manufacturer like Elixir was going to jump on that money grabbing wagon. ;) Haha, sometimes I amuse myself...


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