Official Luthiers Forum!

One of the cocobolo guitars that I built a few years ago developed a split in the back during this past winter. The split is off center and along a grain line. The owner contacted me and I told him I'd fix it free of charge - he's a friend and I figured I would stand to learn something by doing the work.

First, I humidified the guitar. It was pretty obviously dried out, the neck & tail block locations were obvious just by feeling the back. FYI, the back split right along the edge of the tail block (note to self, radius those corners more generously!).

Next, I flooded the crack with extra thin super glue from both inside and out. This seems to have formed a nice bond.

Then, I sanded the glued area back so that I do some touch up spraying. I'll probably start spraying tomorrow (the finish is EM6000).

Here's my question - when fixing a crack such as this, is it recommended that I glue in some additional reinforcement inside the box?

Thanks,
Trev

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

Ideally Yes.

It sounds like if it's at the tail block, that you could do this and it wouldn't be readily visible.

You would want to reinforce it beyond the crack to try and prevent it from spreading (don't just reinforce the crack, but go beyond it length wise).

Good luck with your repair. Keep us posted on how it turns out.

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Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."

I take it as a case by case kind of thing. Some cracks won't need cleats while some do. If the crack is all the way through and of a significant length then I feel better about cleating it.

I'd cleat this one and also pick up an Oasis guitar humidifier to hand your friend upon delivering the guitar back to him. Seriously Trev our crack repair clients rarely escape our lair without being afforded the "opportunity" to procure the means to not harm the instrument again.

BTW one way to tell if a guitar is dry is to look for the indicators which can be:

1) Sunken dome behind and in front of the bridge

2) Strings visiting the frets and over staying their welcome

3) Running your fingers on the fret ends - are they sharp and proud of the neck, if so the neck has shrunken from being dry and of course the metal frets have not