Repair And Restoration
TO ADD FORUM POST USE THE DISCUSSIONS TAB OR ADD NEW TOPIC IN THE SIDE BAR
Organizer:
- Organized by
-
-
1958 Gretsch Country Gent headstock re-repair
-
1958 Gretsch Country Gent headstock re-repair
I recently picked up a gutted first year Country Gent with a headstock break. It had been previously “repaired” with mystery glue, nails, bondo and believe it or not…..staples. I am likely out of my depth here but I want to bring this little bit of history back to life. I scraped off the bondo and that is when I found the staples hiding underneath. I removed the staples and gave the headstock some gentle pressure and found that the gap where I am pointing in the pic was opening up a bit.
My initial plan was to replace the peghead veneer & Gretsch inlay on the front. Then add another veneer on the back and extend it down across the break for some added strength. I might just leave the nails in there since pulling them out at this point might create more problems than it solves. Now I’m thinking I’d need to remove the headstock entirely, scrape off whatever glue was previously used, re-glue and clamp and then go from there.
I’m guessing splines? And a backstrap/veneer? I think that would be stretching my abilities quite a bit. Send help! 🙂
-
22 Replies
-
I actually am wrapping up an old Harmony with a similar poorly repaired headstock break. For best adhesion and stability, I highly recommend taking it all the way apart and cleaning out the old glue. Mine had some sort of glue that never completely hardened, any attempt to reglue that without removing the old gunk would have failed to adhere. On the upside though, the nail and staple holes can be filled with bamboo skewers and toothpicks respectively. That helped me quite a bit- bamboo with wood glue is incredibly strong, much more so than the original mahogany.
Mine did not have a headstock veneer originally, so I sanded it down flat (the break went through the face of the headstock, with bondo on both sides) and added a black veneer. I then shaved down the back and applied a 1/8″ thick ‘veneer’ that I curved to follow the transition to the back of the neck, making it a continuous backstrap. Since I had it available, I put a paper thin veneer of walnut between the original mahogany and the back plate, just to give it a bit more stiffness. This one fitted well enough that once the front and back plates were added to the headstock, I did not feel it necessary to add splines. For yours though, every break is different, if you can’t get a good glue joint, splines would probably be a good idea.
Here’s the headstock after I got it loose:
-
Thank you and super encouraging. How did you take apart the previous repair? Steam it off? And did you go with hide glue or epoxy or something else?
-
Fortunately for me, unfortunately for the previous owner, the glue gave way without much trouble. I was able to wedge a small dental style probe (got a cheap set from Harbor Freight) to separate the wood pieces, and used the picks and narrow carving knives to get all of the old glue out. Steam would work with hide glue, it really depends on what the first repair was done with. My guess is that yours was not previously repaired with hide glue.
-
-
Not to take anything away from Ethan’s excellent advice, but i would seriously consider a new headstock grafted on with a scarf joint. It’s a bigger job, but what you have there has a lot working against a reglue, even with best efforts, lasting. Not to say it absolutely wouldn’t though.
-
Certainly can’t argue with that, it’s really the scope of what he’s comfortable with. For my repair, this was an instrument I purchased for myself (for only $10 since it was in such bad shape), so I just fiddled with it when I had time. I had all of the bits of wood for it, so it was basically removing the parts that were still stuck together, cleaning out the old glue, and putting together a jigsaw puzzle. 😁
Fortunately for me, I have a full time job doing tech support, working from home most days. I can work on stuff like this between calls. As long as I get all my job duties taken care of, my boss doesn’t really care what I do on my idle time. If I was doing this as a paid repair for a customer, there’s no way this would ever have been worth the time or effort. I most likely would have turned down the job.
I have turned down repairs like that- one guy brought me a cheap catalog guitar that had a badly bowed top, cracks on the back, and badly needed a neck reset. That’s a lot of work, it would cost a couple times what the guitar is worth.
-
-
Thank you and makes sense. Unfortunately that seems way out of my league. Any risk in trying what Ethan suggested first and then if that does not hold going the scarf route?
-
yep
-
haha ok. What is the risk? That it breaks again but in a different spot that is even worse? I just wiggled the head off this evening. It is looking baaaad.
-
-
-
For anyone still interested, I’m going to go forward with a backstrap. No splines. Getting close to slapping it on there. I’m pretty optimistic at this point. But we shall see! 🙂
-
Awesome ! Keep us posted !
-
-
My monster backstrap is in progress. I’m hopeful.
-
This looks more like a guitar. Any advice on how to keep everything as level as possible in relation to the neck as I keep sanding? It’s hard because I don’t really have anything to reference off of other than my magical eyeballs
-
Calling it quits on the back of the neck. Moving to the front next.
-
Looking good hoss !
-
-
For anyone following this I think we are done with the headstock. Took full string tension and nothing exploded. Thanks the feedback on here. And extra thanks to Ted Woodford and his videos. I did my best to steal some of the amazing stuff you do and apply it here.
-
Look at this !
Really coming along !
-
-
That is some very nice work!
-
@tedwoodford someone is claiming you as an positive influence. Thought you might like to be apprised.
-
You know I do my best to not be perceived.
-
-
For anyone still following along, I was able to get down some color on the neck and I am (hopefully) in the home stretch. Feeling good!
-
Yo, this looks so good. Great job!!!!
-
-
Super nice!
Log in to reply.