Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a Taylor 12-string in for string height adjustment. It has been damaged at some point and has had the peghead spliced back onto the neck (a very nice job). The damage has also pushed the top block into the body resulting in the misalignment of the neck. The neck is a bolt-on however the fingerboard extension is glued. I just finished another guitar that had a similar problem but required replacing the top under the fingerboard extension. When I took the neck off the top block pretty much came back into alignment.

My question: is there anything I can do to get the top block back to its original position without releasing the fingerboard. I've looked inside the guitar and the top braces seem to be intact. Not sure how that is, but it doesn't look repaired. I'd appreciate any input.

Thanks

Charles

I have repaired two basket cases like this that I had determined were caused by overheating in a hot car and the pull of the strings. The top cracked along side the fretboard which allows the headblock to tilt in resulting in a rise of string action. The deformation of the rosette shows how much the headblock has tilted and there is not much preventing further tilt. The repair goals were to realign the parts and then add support to hold it there.

The repair sort of reversed the process that caused the original damage. First I clamped the body of the guitar to my work bench (back of guitar against the top of the workbench) with the neck sticking out over the side of the bench. Then I arranged a tie down that could pull the neck down in a controlled fashion using a ratchet strap attached to something heavy on the floor and the headstock. Next I took a heat gun and aimed it into the sound hole at the headblock area. After getting the area very hot I started to pull the neck down until the top parts lined up which is best seen by looking at the rosette. Left it to cool off and set overnight. And then I took measures to hold the parts into alignment consisting of regluing the upper transverse brace which had come loose during the original failure; and I added a mahogany block on the side of the headblock that backs up the top crack along the edge of the fingerboard.

Let me state that this was a last ditch effort to save these guitars which may not be a long lasting repair. I did not give a warranty on the work.