Regluing A Neck Heel--Need Advice

[Radspin]

Someone gave me a Made In China Epiphone acoustic that has the neck heel separating from the body. Seems it was dropped or banged. The neck is still attached to the body; there's just a gap of about 1/8 inch at the bottom of the heel and you can easily move the neck towards and away from the body.

My question--is there any way to reglue the neck without taking it completely off the body, and by using household tools and glues? I don't want to spend a lot of money to have a shop reglue the heel of a cheap guitar that might play and sound bad anyway after it's fixed, or spend money buying specialized clamps etc. if I don't have to.

[fraser]

Originally Posted by Radspin

Someone gave me a Made In China Epiphone acoustic that has the neck heel separating from the body. Seems it was dropped or banged. The neck is still attached to the body; there's just a gap of about 1/8 inch at the bottom of the heel and you can easily move the neck towards and away from the body.

My question--is there any way to reglue the neck without taking it completely off the body, and by using household tools and glues? I don't want to spend a lot of money to have a shop reglue the heel of a cheap guitar that might play and sound bad anyway after it's fixed, or spend money buying specialized clamps etc. if I don't have to.

if it was mine id take it off first- if yu can flex it away and towards the body, its real loose- maybe just get the fretboard extension off the top and itll pop right off-
then clean it up and reglue.
or, for ghetto style, water down some white glue, saturate the joint with it using a syringe or something- got to be sure it gets into the dovetail too tho, then use a belt or two, or rope, around the body, bearing against the heel, to clamp it.
ive propped a guitar up using books, then put a book under the headstock - guitar face down- then weight on the guitars back, so all the tortion pulls the neck heel to the body. not pretty, but it works- keep wet rags around to wipe off excess glue before it dries-
not the way i do things now, but back when i lived in a car, it was all good.

[Radspin]

Fraser,

Thanks for the advice--I think I'll try the down-and-dirty method. The guitar is a cheap freebie, so at worst I'll get a poorly-playing instrument, or some good tuners and parts--and at best I'll have a cool guitar that cost nothing! The guy I got it from was going to throw it out, which would have been a shame if I can fix it, since the rest of the guitar is in excellent condition.

[Radspin]

Well Fraser, I tried your "ghetto" method and it worked perfectly. Thinned some Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Glue with water, put the mixture into a syringe that my wife had on hand for mixing hair color (I think), squirted it into the neck/body split, and used a wet rag to up the mess that ensued when the glue/water mixture leaked out of the neck/body split all over the place. Put the guitar upside down with the headstock on a paperback book, and weighed the back of the guitar down with a heavy book, the base of a mike stand and some other stuff.

I let the guitar sit for five days, then restrung it, adjusted the truss rod and shaved the bridge saddle down a little bit and voila! The guitar plays really well and the neck is straight. It ain't no Martin D-18, but it sounds OK--and now it's a usable instrument instead of firewood.