| Before & After Pictures of
Broken Necks & Pegheads
| Gibson A-4 Broken Top and Neck |
Can you feel their pain? I yi yi! You know those neat little bottom loading cases that originally came with these old guys? They had a leather strap that buckles the flap closed and keeps the mandolin from slipping out... Hanging on by a thread...  
Ahh, better!   
This repair wasn't entirely invisible, there is a slight halo where I blended the new finish on the top but she's as good as I can get her.
This peghead/ neck break severed the peghead completely. A new peghead veneer was used to further strengthen the repair and render it invisible from the front. Simple touch up was done to the back of the neck as cosmetics were not an issue to the customer. The lines you see on the back of the peghead in Picture 4 are lacquer checks/crazing. Sanding the back of the peghead in attempt to render it invisible would cause more of an eyesore than leaving it alone.
| Gibson EB-2 Bass (Broken Peghead) |
Fortunately Gibson often likes to shade the area around their pegheads and heels, this fact has helped conceal many a peghead repair. This particular Bass had some very heavy, very big tuners on it at the time that it was broken. The weight of the tuners coupled with the fact that they required large holes for mounting further weakened this vulnerable area. The holes were plugged which added more mass to the peghead, a new thicker Ebony veneer was added and a lighter, smaller tuner was installed.
Why is the kind of break so common? More info.   
See picture 1, that is a very common scenario to see on Gibson's. I call it a flip top crack. The plastic peghead veneer (this is the thin black overlay that is glued to the front of the peghead) is flexible and often remains intact so the peghead does not break completely off.
Although I don't have an after shot for the first repair (or a before shot for the second repair) these were the same kind of breaks.
On the Gibson Blueshawk in picture 2 I did some brush touch up and avoided shading the peghead, though that is sometimes necessary if you hope to hide a bad break or avoid a complete neck refinish.  
When no wood is lost, no one plays with the break, the wood has not been crushed or compressed and the crack has not been previously repaired, this kind of break can often be successfully repaired by gluing and clamping. Aliphatic glue is very strong is often my glue of choice as it does not harm the finish and will minimize touch up. Hide glue is also an option but I find epoxy to be too thick for a tight fitting crack and it can obviously damage the finish.
There are many factors that will determine how much effort is needed to repair a broken peghead. Longer cracks running sort of parallel with the neck offer us a greater gluing surface and are usually a common candidate for a "glue and clamp" repair. But short choppy breaks, as if someone had sawed right thru the neck at the nut have little chance of simply being glued and clamped.
Common ways to repair severely damaged pegheads include :
 | Neck replacement ,obviously. |
| Splinting -the addition of inlayed strips or dowels along or thru a break which reinforce the area. I personally don't care for this option and have never offered it.
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| Peghead overlay -basically...a veneer added to the back side of the peghead. This requires careful thinning of the peghead area and an addition of a veneer which is carved and shaped to flow into the original. |
| Peghead Splice -cutting the original peghead and portion of the neck off around the 3rd fret or so and splicing in a new, handcarved peghead. If you look at a number of newer guitars you will notice that several manufactures are now joining their peghead to the neck just below the neck in attempt to avoid the problems commonly associated with grain run out.
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Can You Fix This? I get allot of request to repair broken pegheads, unfortunately they are quite common. But in general, most repairs to the neck will require extensive shading, touch up or even refinishing to look good. And since I no longer offer refinish work I can no longer offer these kinds of repairs.
As you will read all over my site, lacquer does some nasty things to my central nervous system and I no longer take in repairs that will require a fair amount of finish work. If you are looking for someone to repair a badly broken neck or peghead I can give you some recommendations but please note that if finish work is involved I will not be able to help you.
 
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