Headstock snapped clean off. What am I looking at here?

[Monk of Funk]

This is the damage.

What am I looking at? Can this be repaired? Could I repair it myself? Is it done? It's not the greatest guitar in the world, but I'd like to salvage it if I could.

[Ozzy the dog]

From the photo it looks like an easy fix. As long as the two pieces fit together nicely there appears to be plenty of area for a strong glue joint.

[Monk of Funk]

Originally Posted by Ozzy the dog

From the photo it looks like an easy fix. As long as the two pieces fit together nicely there appears to be plenty of area for a strong glue joint.

That's good to hear. They do fit together nicely. The only thing I'm worried about, aside if the glue would be strong enough, is it might be a little bit rough on the hands where the join is. I was thinking of maybe having to sand it down and re-gloss it or something like that. Or maybe I would just sand it all down and go with a more satin type finish.

Would I just use wood glue? Or how much would it cost to have this repaired roughly?

[mirwa]

Alignment is critical, gluing is easy, get it slightly mis-aligned and the job exponentially becomes bigger

One I finished just this week



Steve

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by mirwa

Alignment is critical, gluing is easy, get it slightly mis-aligned and the job exponentially becomes bigger

One I finished just this week

Steve

A Les Paul?

Surely not

[redir]

Originally Posted by Monk of Funk

That's good to hear. They do fit together nicely. The only thing I'm worried about, aside if the glue would be strong enough, is it might be a little bit rough on the hands where the join is. I was thinking of maybe having to sand it down and re-gloss it or something like that. Or maybe I would just sand it all down and go with a more satin type finish.

Would I just use wood glue? Or how much would it cost to have this repaired roughly?

It's an easy fix for an experienced tech but not so much as a DIY first time thing. If it was not snapped clean off then it would be an easy fix, this one is clean off.

First of all, if done right it will be just as strong as the original joint, assuming it was a scarf joint. The angle of the scarf joint is typically 15deg and that looks about what you have there, IOW it looks like it broke on the same angle-ish of the joint, you have plenty of gluing surface there.

The problem you will have trying to do this yourself is aligning it perfectly and clamping it in place without the two pieces swimming away from you in a pool of slippery glue. Guitar teck/luthiers have jigs for this.

You might want to have a close look at the other cracks that are apparent in that image, probably just finish cracks, but check it out to be sure.

[leeplaysblues]

Originally Posted by mirwa

Alignment is critical, gluing is easy, get it slightly mis-aligned and the job exponentially becomes bigger

One I finished just this week



Steve

Les Pauls and headstock breaks... go together like a horse and carriage...

[Diggum]

Originally Posted by leeplaysblues

Les Pauls and headstock breaks... go together like a horse and carriage...

Beautiful repair work, Steve!

[TJN]

I've seen some pictures of repairs done by Steve at MIRWA and amazed at what can be fixed. If the guitar matters to you, you may want to contact a professional.

[mirwa]

Thanks..

Repairing is about alignment and attention to detail, anyone is capable of doing it, I just advise not doing it if its your first time and the guitar is important to you

Steve

[phavriluk]

I'm going to take my SWAG at this, and I might be immensely off-base, bit I think we're looking at a 'mature' beater, from birth. I think that a repair is do-able without breaking the bank if gluing the headstock back on is the only task in the discussion. I think that any finish repair is uneconomic to consider. And I suggest OP pay the man what he wants because he's the one with tooling and experience. I think good repair alignment can go a long way in making the glue-up look reasonable and those fixtures and clamps are absolutely required to do a decent job.