Cleat material for a cedar topped guitar

[slowesthand]

Hello all, I have a question for the experts . A friend has a cedar top Takamine with a cracked top. It is his beater guitar now, and doesn't want to throw a bunch of money in it to get repaired.

I volunteered to do a amateur repair job on it after watching and reading allot on the subject.

My question is, can I use regular Titebond glue on the cedar, and could I just use pieces of popsicle (craft sticks) for the cleats. I know this would be very amateur, but would it work?

Thanks for any replies.

[D. Churchland]

For cleats to be effective they need to have good grain runout (preferably no runout) popsicle sticks are not known for this. Just get some of the spruce bits that lmii or stewmac sells and use it. You'll have a better repair and it'll last longer.

Make certain that the grain does NOT run parallel with the top, it needs to be horizontal to hold the crack closed.

Tite bond should work fine as well.

[Rodger Knox]

Yes, craft sticks will work fine, the cleats need to be about 1/2" x 1/2". Spruce would be better, but the only really important thing is to have the grain of the cleat perpendicular to the grain of the top. Cleats are usually much stronger than they need to be, you could probably thin the craft stick down to 0.04" thick in the middle and feather out the edges.
Magnets work for clamping the cleats while the glue dries. HHG would be best, Titebond 1 will also work fine. I'd recommend Titebond, the longer open time will make it easier to position the cleats through the soundhole.