Help! How to repair a cracked neck?

Saw some stuff online, said to string it up, use the string tension to pull the crack open, then pack it with glue. After packing with glue, relax the strings to close the crack, then clamp it.
I don't have any clamps. Heavy books?

I have:
Gorilla glue
Elmer's white school glue
Liquid nails

Which one will work best? I've heard repaired neck cracks are sometimes stronger than the original wood. True?

The Gorilla Glue works wonders

Clamps without fail and monkey glue.

What happened?

bought cheap because of the crack with the intent to repair.

So the Gorilla glue is the best, eh?

Does the "using the string tension to spread the crack open" method make sense?

I use a good quality PVA white glue. Take the string off and open the crack using hand pressure or clamps.

Use some very thin plastic to load up glue into the crack as far as you can. Release pressure, wipe off excess and then clamp it shut.

Sometimes I will bind it with thin rubber tubing if placement of clamps is difficult.

Leave for a couple of days and then restring.

I haven't had one fail yet.

Hoax

Brainfertilizer wrote:Saw some stuff online, said to string it up, use the string tension to pull the crack open, then pack it with glue.  After packing with glue, relax the strings to close the crack, then clamp it.

That works if the crack is at the rear of the headstock. If it's on the the nut side...not so much. You need to reverse the procedure and spread the crack mechanically. Then use the string tension to help hold it closed.  

I don't have any clamps.  Heavy books?

You really need to clamp it.

I have:
Gorilla glue
Elmer's white school glue
Liquid nails

Which one will work best?

If you have to choose, the Gorilla Glue. Best results are had with a good quality PVA (Carpenter's Glue)

I've heard repaired neck cracks are sometimes stronger than the original wood.  True?

Yep. Given the right glue.

Cool.
Yeah, the crack is on the back side of the neck.
When not strung (current status), it is so tight you almost can't see the crack.

Decided to try to find a waterproof PVA, because I don't want to deal with the foaming up of gorilla glue.

Searched on Amazon and saw Titebond II.

But I'm not sure what the difference is between 5003, 5004, 1415, 1416, 5006, 1414, 5064, etc...

Always clamp. Good excuse to buy some... you can never have too many. I still have most of the clamps I bought for my repair shop in the 60’s/70's. The good ones only get more expensive, and more difficult to find... and I'm not talking about specialty clamps. In a pinch you can get a fair amount of pressure using band clamps (like the kind used on radiator hoses). Make sure you get them large enough for the bracing. Don't put a clamp directly on the repair area.

Gorilla glue is great stuff but you'd better get it right. You won't be able to free it up again. I only use it in a pinch. I'm not knocking it. There's something like a bazillion (technical term) kinds of adhesives, and each has it's use. It's the kind of thing where it really pays to read up on the product specs.

Good luck!

Sorry! I was writing when you posted.

I use TiteBond III. It's called "Ultimate." Different ones are light duty, heavy duty, waterproof, exterior use, et cetera. I buy the III by the gallon. Easy to clean up, strong as hell. I highly recommend. ;-)

METESKY wrote:...I use TiteBond III. It's called "Ultimate."... Easy to clean up, strong as hell. I highly recommend. ;-)

This the one most often recommended if available. Hard to find this particular version here for some reason. In Canada, you're more likely to find something like Elmer's. You'll be fine as long as it's a  "carpenter's grade" and not Dollar Store / school stuff.

Let's see some pics of the crracks - if they are hairline, I tend to use a much thinner glue - super type glue as oppossed to wood glue.  But as others have said - ya gotta clamp it.  for a small crack you just mak need 1 clamp so worth the $

Will something like this work as a clamp?
http://www.greatnecktools.com/products/show/LP10CR

pictures of the crack.
It only shows up because of the flash.

I used Cascamite on the Urchin project and was mightily impressed by it; can't find it here though!

How much does a clamp like that cost?

http://greatnecktools.com/products/show/SBC12

$12

http://greatnecktools.com/products/show/59001

best of luck with the repair, I did my 2nd glue n clamp job recently, 1 on a spectrum seriesII headstock  and the other on the urchin restore, both using standard pva which so far...touch wood....(pun intended)...have been rock solid.

Brainfertilizer wrote:How much does a clamp like that cost?

Around £20/25 each.

It's soft jawed.

You won't need tons of pressure on that crack. A cheap alternative will do the trick.

Here's what I'm going with:
This clamp:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000051WSG/ref=pe_385040_30332200_pe_309540_26725410_item
This glue:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000223UR/ref=pe_385040_30332200_pe_309540_26725410_item

The Titebond III Ultimate was significantly more expensive.

This should be good.

But I would like to offer my sincere, heartfelt gratitude to all of you who answered. If not for you, I probably would have made a significant mistake, or had significantly worse outcomes.

Thanks.

You taking your guitar out in the rain...

Nope!

That should do the trick fine, but it's only a 2" jaw, a bigger clamp will be much more useful when repairing yer guitars in the future.

So I strung it up to see what the string pressure would do, and as a natural way to hold the crack open while I stuffed it with glue.

I got about 0.5mm of space opened up.

Is that enough to stuff it with glue? Or should I try to get it open wider?
I'm a little nervous about trying for wider, because I'm worried the headstock might actually snap off...

looking at your pics I would guess 0.5 should be fine, you can use thin card to force the glue down into the depths of the crack where a spreader will not reach, or dental floss/wire.
get the glue in and wipe off the excess, let the join close and see where the glue seeps out, it should be a uniform seepage, if it isnt, open it up and apply more glue.
Good luck!

Brilliant!
That's exactly the advice I needed (about the uniform seepage letting me know I did it right).

Okay, so I packed the split with as much glue as I could. I used thin plastic envelope for the strings I just put on it to try to work the glue in as far as it could go, and to wipe up excess and push into the split.

The glue helped me to see the split was wider than I thought.

When I got all the glue in that I thought I could, I relaxed the strings, and glue seeped out all across the line, pretty evenly.

Then I grabbed the clamp and tightened it down, and more glue came out...glad you guys told me I'd need the clamp, even with the crack being pretty tight!

Wiped off the excess, and letting it set.

How long before I can take off the clamp and tighten up the strings?

"they" say 24 hours, I left mine 3 days just to be sure.

Success!
The crack is sealed strong.
Can barely see the crack now, even under full string tension.
Great action.
Great single coil sound...sub-par humbucker sound. But sounds good split. So since it cost me $50 shipped to acquire, I might end up selling it. Dunno.

Good job! piece of cake eh?

what is the guitar?   pix man!

Oh, just a Yamaha SE 312. Nothing special.
If I have a good day on eBay, it might go for $100.

I think I saw Dan Earlewine use a hair dryer to force glue into a crack.  Great idea!