An F2 repair

**sunburst** · Apr-24-2012, 7:11pm

P J Doland bought this F2 in two pieces and had it sent to me to be put back together. It is now with it's owner, and he seemed to like the idea of some pictures being here, so here they are. There are a few pics of this mando in various stages of the repair in various threads, but I'll consolidate them into one thread.
It came to my shop looking like this. The head stock was snapped tight off, fractured across the grain.

**sunburst** · Apr-24-2012, 7:20pm

After first gluing the head back on, I decided the veneer overlays, front and back, should be replaced and splines added to reinforce the glue joint because the break exposes almost all end grain, and end grain wood does not glue with enough strength to be structural. I sanded away the black paint that Gibson used on these things and took a photo of the inlay so that I could print it out "life size" and cut replica pearl, then removed the overlays. You can see the tooth plane marks in the back of the peghead left by some worker at Gibson in the 20s.

**sunburst** · Apr-24-2012, 7:23pm

I had to work around the truss rod pocket, the tuner holes, and the curve of the back of the neck, so to make sure I could fit the splines in, I used a contour gauge to draw a cross section of the neck at the nut position and then drew in the 3/8" by 1/8" splines.

**sunburst** · Apr-24-2012, 7:29pm

Convinced that I had room to instal them, I set up a jig and routed slots for the two carbon fiber splines and epoxied them in place to reinforce the repair.

**sunburst** · Apr-24-2012, 7:41pm

I soaked some maple veneers in strong tea and then in vinegar and steel wool to "ebonize" them and made new overlays for the front and back of the peghead, cut new replica pearl "The Gibson" script from the photo taken earlier, glued the veneers in place and installed the inlay (no pictures of those processes). To replicate the black paint that Gibson used, I tried lamp black mixed with shellac, and got a pretty good match. I sprayed that on then scraped the black off of the inlay like they did at Gibson in those days, then added more blonde shellac by spraying and by French polishing to complete the finish touch up. It turned out like this:

**sunburst** · Apr-24-2012, 7:44pm

Thanks for looking!

**Paul Kotapish** · Apr-24-2012, 7:48pm

Very impressive, John. Looks like the thing is as good as new again. Thanks for sharing the process.

**Paul Kotapish** · Apr-24-2012, 7:51pm

Did you also reinforce the peghead scroll while you were at it?

**sunburst** · Apr-24-2012, 7:56pm

Ha! Maybe you missed that thread...
Nope, that is Gibson's original "scroll strengthener" in there.

**Bill Burch** · Apr-24-2012, 9:06pm

John, that's amazing craftsmanship. Now all you need is a jig to simulate 90 years of stringing dings.

Bill

**Grommet** · Apr-25-2012, 3:19am

Congrats to both you and PJ for a masterfull job!

Scott

**Tavy** · Apr-25-2012, 6:31am

That's a mighty fine repair there John - knowing how hard this stuff is to do, I have nothing but admiration for for the job you've done there!

**JeffD** · Apr-25-2012, 7:41am

Nice job. Wow.

**mandolinlee** · Apr-25-2012, 7:42am

John, Very interesting repair. Nice, nice work.
Thanks,
Lee

**buckhorn** · Apr-25-2012, 7:57am

john.................you are majic....i kneel to your abilities and look for more of said majic ....we have all gained from your work

**PJ Doland** · Apr-25-2012, 8:55am

It arrived yesterday. It's really impossible to overstate just how invisible the repair is. I can't find it, and with those CF splints in there, I can't imagine it would ever break again.

**PJ Doland** · Apr-25-2012, 9:08am

Now listed in the classifieds. Hoping it finds a good home for the next 90 years.

..and on to the next project.

**Jake Wildwood** · Apr-25-2012, 4:22pm

Excellent work, for sure. And so accurate!!!

**barrangatan** · Apr-25-2012, 4:25pm

Very impressive John. When I looked at the 'after' photos, I was hard pressed to tell where the repair is, or that there was even one. Excellent job

**Ben Milne** · May-01-2012, 7:00am

Thanks for sharing. Excellent work.

**Fretbear** · May-01-2012, 7:16am

Originally Posted by sunburst

After first gluing the head back on....

That's very casually put; how in blazes did you go about clamping that up?

**AlanN** · May-01-2012, 7:29am

sunburst

You are the man...

**JEStanek** · May-01-2012, 7:52am

Very impressive repair and finish work, John.

Very well done.

Jamie

**sunburst** · May-01-2012, 10:18am

Originally Posted by Fretbear

That's very casually put; how in blazes did you go about clamping that up?

Ya know... that's one of the reasons I take pictures of repair processes, so I can go back and look at the pictures and see how I did things. I don't have a picture of the glue process, and I can't remember what I did!
I do remember that it took quite a while to align all the little wood splinters, remove a few uncooperative ones, and get the parts to fit fully together. I think I just applied the glue, tapped the parts together with a mallet and left it undisturbed to dry. Hide glue doesn't need clamps if the fit is good, but this was a case where the fit wasn't going to be "good" no matter what I did and the majority of the gluing surface was end grain (hence the CF spines), so as long as everything fit together as closely as possible, that was the best I could do, clamps or no calmps.