This 1974 Gibson Les Paul came into the shop with a crack in the headstock that needed to be fixed. This type of repair is fairly common for LP-style guitars. Here, you can see the crack where the neck transitions to the headstock. So this Gibson Les Paul Classic is broken. The headstock is completely torn off. Guitar headstock broken. Fixable or no? (self.Guitar) submitted 3 years ago by kennythexu. I kind of the like the idea that the crack will be visible. It adds character to the guitar. I'll be calling a luthier to get a quote today, so I can let you know.
Got the guitar and did the typical once over. Immediate red flag for a headstock crack repair. The dark line on the right side of the headstock. You can clearly see there is a line underneath it and that goes a little bit past it that was to be covered up but still shows through the darker finish.
You can only see the dark line in direct sunlight or with a flashlight. The finish is completely smooth. I put it under a black light and it doesn't show any signs of being refinished in that area. It appears to be the factory finish. In this pic you can see a blemish right above the flash spot. I tried to wipe it off but it didnt want to come off. There was no mention of a repair or crack in the ad.
What do you think? A scratch that happened at the factory and they just touched it up? A possible crack that was repaired before they finished it?
If it were a repaired headstock break, you should be able to see evidence of it along the radius of the back of thr neck, from one side of the fretboard to the other. If there has been a repair, it looks like a good one. To do a good one, the headstock would have to be totally removed from he neck to get a good repair glue joint. I have read of players putting a 'black light' on the suspect area, which better shows evidence of such repairs. Don't know much about that, but I'll bet your local luthier does. From what I can see in pic 4, it looks like only a scratch - the kind that might result from leaning the guitar up with the neck against a fairly sharp edge.
With the grain running along the neck length, you have a very strong piece of wood. It'll resist bending and breaking nicely. However, where the headstock angles, this strength becomes a weakness.
When you cut an entire neck out of a single piece of wood, the angled headstock adds an incredibly effective ‘fault line’. As luck would have it, that fault line occurs at what is already the thinnest and weakest part of the neck — where the headstock ‘leaves’ the neck. The 'shorter' section of grain here is much more susceptible to splitting or breaking apart. What can builders do to prevent broken necks?
I’m going to paraphrase something I read years ago (and I can’t remember an attribution for it): “Porsche designers decided to put the engine of the 911 over the rear axle and have spent the last fifty years trying to make a car defy physics because of that decision.” I like to think of angled headstocks in a similar way. You could think of an angled headstock as almost a design flaw. But it’s got something pretty great about it so, now we need to find a way to defy physics so it doesn’t keep snapping off. No one idea is the answer but there are ways to make the snapping, at least a little, less likely. The Volute The easiest way to help things is to add some wood at that weakest point.
A volute is just a protrusion on the rear of the neck-headstock join. This adds a little strength and, while it’s not a guarantee, can certainly help. By cutting a piece from the end of a neck blank, flipping it and glueing it back on at an angle (as shown above) we can actually make that grain direction thing work for us rather than against us. Jointing a headstock on can be accomplished in a number of different ways but the theory is pretty much the same as illustrated.
![Gibson Les Paul Headstock Crack Gibson Les Paul Headstock Crack](http://www.es-335.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/smilecrack.jpg)
A good glue joint is strong. No grain fault-lines exist and the end result is a strong neck. Purists claim it won’t ‘resonate’ in the same way but, as with so many claims, I’d really love to perform some properly blinded testing on this. Straight neck. Not sure if it’s fair to mention a straight neck as a solution but Fender-style necks are certainly stronger than their angled counterparts.
Again, the grain all goes in the same direction so it’s less likely to crack. Not impossible, of course but, all things being equal, you’ll have fewer Fender headstock cracking than Gibson. In Gibson’s Defence I know I’ve done a lot of Gibson-bashing in this one. That’s (partially) unfair. Gibson are not the only guitar manufacturer to make guitar necks like this. They are the biggest and best known though. And, as noted, the company seems to be revisiting the volute, at least on some of their models.
Lastly, in Gibson’s defence, they have a really, really hard time changing anything. If they announced, proudly, that they were going to scarf-joint all their headstocks, guitar nerds the world over would take to the forums and decry it. “But our tone! Headstock-gate!” There is a very invested, and vocal, ‘lobby’ of conservative Gibson fans. Many, many people do not like it when the Big G makes a change. So, for the most part, many Gibson one-piece guitar necks will continue to fulfil their destinies by becoming two piece necks. What can players do to prevent broken necks?
Don’t drop your guitar. Yeah, I know.
Not hugely helpful, is it? But, other than being careful, there’s not a huge amount I can suggest. Just don’t drop it.
And don’t assume that being in a case will help. I’ve worked on plenty of Gibsons that suffered headstock breaks after falling in their cases.
Sucks, I know. And on that depressing note, I’ll take my leave.