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Thread: How to replace a broken A-model neck

  1. #1

    Default How to replace a broken A-model neck

    NOTE from site owner: thread closed at OP request.

    well I'm having trouble with this, please bear with me. This Gibson A-model had the Crack of Doom, a broken off peghead, that remained unglued for years and had oxidized. So I had to make a new neck. After sawing off the stump I chiseled out the remains of the dovetail, and the back side of the dovetail had bandsaw marks in an arc, an artifact of the method to cut the joint. After making a new neck blank from rock maple with a rosewood spline I set up the angles and transferred the dimensions of the existing dovetail socket. Some of the cutting could be done on the bandsaw, some had to be chiselled. The original neck was either cherry or birch with a dyed pear or maple spline, and a rock maple triangular inlay to act as a truss rod. The replacemant neck will be French polished the same color. After the new dovetail was fitted, all the other dimensions can be extrapolated to the blank, and cut on the bandsaw. An ebony veneer was used on the peghead. The original fingerboard died and I had to make a new one. I mixed up carpenter's chalk with water to chalk-fit the dovetail by transferring the high spots. More pics in the next post. Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by Scott Tichenor; Feb-04-2012 at 9:20am. Reason: Thread being closed at OP request

  2. #2

    Default How to replace a broken neck, part II

    This shows the fitting of the new dovetail in the old body. By repeatedly paring off the high spots the dovetail slowly settles into its proper position. Then the rest of the layout lines can be drawn and cut, the peghead veneered, and the back of the neck roughly shaped with a drawknife and spokeshave. Today I prepared the new fingerboard. I should have this finished next week, will post pics of the finish. I could have put in a caron fiber reinforcement or truss rod, but this is rock maple and rosewood on a very short neck, with the customer using light gauge strings, so hopefully that will be sufficient. If any of this is confusing or badly explained please comment and I'll try to clear it up. Please visit my website lawrencebrownguitars.weebly.com for more eye candy, and say Hey! Thanks guys, Larry
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  3. #3
    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    Ouch! It hurts me to see that salvageable neck cut off like that! (Sorry...)

  4. #4
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    Second that.....loads of gluing surface there. Too late now!


    Rob

  5. #5
    Registered User j. condino's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    A simple repair on an almost 100 year old mandolin neck originally done with hot hide glue that was instead replaced with a period incorrect maple neck and Titebond????? Why not just add a Floyd Rose while you're at it....

  6. #6
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    I typed this answer up three times when it was posted and simply decided that I must have been off base. I've repaired a banjo and a guitar with the same break using Frank Ford's methods on www.frets.com and I make no claim to lutherie. I don't understand not repairing the headstock break either.

  7. #7
    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    I am watching this with interest as the OP has some -serious- cred in mando repair:

    http://lawrencebrownguitars.weebly.c...storation.html

    The 'saw in neck' image was pretty chilling. How would one go about properly cleaning out that oxidized head joint for repair?

    Mick
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  8. #8
    Registered User j. condino's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    OK. lets try again.

    Larry, I've seen your work in person and am usually amazed at the level of precision, attention to detail, and craftsmanship that you put into both new builds and historic restorations. Most of the time I'm blown away at your skills and artistry. I generally have tremendous respect for it. I think the above responses are because we're a little confused. Being a serious bunch of mandolin geeks with a strong respect for the "all hail old Gibsons" mentality at times, we usually try to stick to a pretty nerdy set of restoration ethics. Saving as much of the original instrument as possible; always keeping to period correct materials, design, and adhesives; that sort of thing....very little of that seems to be the case here.

    Could you elaborate a little more on your reasons for these choices and why you went outside of the more traditional spectrum. I'd gamble that one of the reasons for the responses, mine included, are that it terrifies the rest of us to think that newer folks reading this will suddenly adopt those methods as the standard choices. If described what was done in casual conversation, my first thought would be that you just dropped the street value in half. Not having seen the before and after in person, I'm open to ideas...

    Can I come by and check it out? We live within a couple of miles of each other.

    j.
    www.condino.com

  9. #9
    Hester Mandolins Gail Hester's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    Could you elaborate a little more on your reasons for these choices and why you went outside of the more traditional spectrum. I'd gamble that one of the reasons for the responses, mine included, are that it terrifies the rest of us to think that newer folks reading this will suddenly adopt those methods as the standard choices.
    +1

    Not a comment on your skill because I'm sure you are very talented but the lack of respect for the integrity of this beautiful vintage instrument makes me queasy.
    Gail Hester

  10. #10
    Registered User j. condino's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken neck, part II

    Scott, can you or one of the moderators morph this into the original thread so we don't have two things going at once on the same subject? Thanks.

    j.

  11. #11
    Café habitué Paul Hostetter's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    +2. Ouch.
    .
    ph

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  12. #12
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    Merged.

  13. #13
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    Not that Larry needs me to defend him (he doesn't) but I'll chime in here
    to provide a little more background. The saw-through-the-neck photo is
    certainly jarring!

    I no longer own this instrument, but I know it well, as I bought it in
    about 1999, in its already broken state (from a guy... at a CMSA
    convention... who knocked on my hotel room door and had this
    broken mandolin in a paper grocery sack... "pssst... hey buddy...
    wanna buy a mandolin?"....) I have no way of knowing
    how long before that time the break actually took place... but I
    suspect it had been broken a long time before I saw it... giving
    the split ends time to morph around a little with the weather.

    Yes, there is lots of surface area there, and yes, a repair was attempted
    in the hands of a well-known luthier, along the lines of what many of the
    posters here are suggesting. Unfortunately, though there is lots of surface
    area, enough time had passed that the very complex three-dimensional
    break didn't fit together all that well anymore. It was impossible to actually
    put it back together tightly. With the inevitable slight misalignment, the
    repair looked bad, and it was clear that it was only a matter of time before
    it let go again... which it eventually did in a subsequent owner's hands.

    I'm normally a guy who is a stickler for the original, and I generally like
    to see original bits saved if they can be. In this case, given the circumstances,
    I think this was an acceptable approach. The instrument will have a new lease
    on life (and it was clearly a nice player when it had its head on). At the end of
    the day it is a plain Gibson A... a nice instrument, but not a rare and priceless
    relic... :-) IMHO, the damage to its sense of originality had been done by the
    break and its subsequent neglect.

    A new peg head and a neck splice would have been possible, I suppose, but as
    long as you're re-making a peg head, why not have a whole neck that you know
    is sound for the long haul?

    Maybe you won't agree, but sometimes amputation is necessary to save the patient...
    I'm personally comfortable with Larry's approach and attention to detail.

    Best,

    Eric
    "The effect is pretty at first... It is disquieting to find that there are nineteen people in England who can play the mandolin; and I sincerely hope the number may not increase."

    - George Bernard Shaw, Times of London, December 12, 1893

  14. #14
    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    I have no argument with deciding not to re-repair the break, I have no particular problem with the maple neck (it can always be changed again), but it isn't very hard to steam one of those dovetails loose, and if that had been done and the neck removed in only two pieces, someone could have put the original neck back together for some other purpose, or to put back in this mandolin later. As it is, the neck is now virtually unsalvageable.
    BTW, there are several ways to fix the headstock break other than simply gluing the existing surfaces.

  15. #15
    Registered User Vernon Hughes's Avatar
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    Default Re: How to replace a broken A-model neck

    ("The original neck was either cherry or birch with a dyed pear or maple spline")..Never seen a cherry or birch neck on a pumpkin top,mahogany with the dyed strip for sure..Could have saved yourself a lot of time in the neck removal with a hypodermic needle and some rubbing alcohol..That joint would have loosened up and the neck would pop right out..I would have still tried to save it or at least do a period correct replacement,but whats done is done..
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