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This repair was - from what I have seen - pretty routine. Some missing wood and lacquer, but good long grain gluing area, and the owner was kind enough to avoid causing too much additional damage due to handling or curiosity about whether the two parts would rejoin. After a tense session using the surgical loups, vessel clamps, and various dental picks to remove each offending splinter, we got this one back together with hot hide and our neck splint fixture.

We see a fair number of repaired and re-broken Gibson head stocks, as well as amateur neck repair attempts, so the last thing the boss wanted to see was the usual shaded or 'sunbursted' shortcut repair. I ended up doing the fine point and airbrush work and most of the top lacquer coats...with extensive 'over the shoulder' surveillance, of course.

The toughest part of these sort of repairs seems to be gaining and maintaining alignment of the fragments of the peg head with neck shaft. I found some useful posts on fixtures and different approaches to disguising the damage on several other web sites, as well as in the archives here, but ended up using the existing shop fixture for the job.

If you look carefully, you can see why the boss made me strip the strings, tuners, and truss rod cover to retouch the transition area of the neck and to rebuff the peg head near the upper truss rod cover screw. Came out better, but the customer was at that point 20 minutes out from pickup, so no 'final-final' shots.

Thanks, OLF!

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Very well done!

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

Broken neck? What broken neck?

Clean!

Very neat job

That's better than new!

Alex

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

Excellent repair. Any chance you can share a photo of your shop fixture? I have an acoustic with a broken headstock in the shop that eventually needs to be repaired so it can go to a good home.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I'll see if I can get a shot or two...those are not yet on the Google Drive! A richly deserved weekend off coming up, so it may be a few days. From what I recall, it is based loosely on David Collin's fixture, which is in this thread on Frets.net (yes...I lurk in many, many forums... )

http://fretsnet.ning.com/forum/topics/headstock-repair-jig-that-i-would-love-to-get-the-plans-for?id=2177249%3ATopic%3A118560&page=1#comments

_________________
For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

That's it Woodie. Thanks. I'll be headed up to David's shop at the end of this month so I should be able to see it in person.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"