Yamaha F325 neck crack near head question

[Dusty Ridge]

I would like to reaper a Yamaha F325 with a neck crack near the head. The crack does not extent to the finger board. At first I thought I would need to remove the finger board to do the repair, now I’m not convinced that is necessary. I had also thought of using hide glue, but I am wondering if injecting titebond would work. What are your thoughts and recommendations? Thank you

[Mark Swanson]

This is a fixable repair. it will involve two things, getting glue into the crack, and getting it clamped up well. If you can do that, you'll get it done. Either glue will work, I guess I would suggest that you use the one you are the most familiar with.
Flex the crack open as much as you dare, I often use a clamp or something to hold it open while I get the glue in there. If you use hide glue, warm the neck up and that will allow the glue to flow into the crack much better and give you more working time as well. Hide glue requires some experience. If you use Titebond, you can water it down just a bit at first and then put in a bit more unwatered glue. Work it into the crack as best you can.
Then you have to clamp it up well. make sure that you have all your clamps at hand, and do a dry run of clamping without any glue, so that when you glue it up you'll be able to quickly get it clamped. this is very important if you use hide glue, you don't have a lot of time.

[Bob Gramann]

Mark has done many more of these than I have and my experience totally backs up his advice. But, I want to add to it. I've had the displeasure of dealing with a couple of these after the first repair attempts, either by the owner or another repairman, failed. Getting the Titebond out of these repairs after the first repair attempt is botched can be quite a chore and can require complete disassembly of all of the involved joints. If you plan to use Titebond, please be sure that you get it right the first time. I would say that it is worth getting the experience with hot hide glue first and then using that. If the repair doesn't hold, you don't have to remove the hide glue--moisture and heat reactivates it.

I've made a little cardboard box oven (with a space heater and a thermometer) to warm necks before this repair. Twenty minutes warming at 120 - 130 F gives you a long time to work the hide glue in and get things clamped.

Remove the tuners so you don't have to work around them and make whatever jigs and clamping cauls you need to get it clamped perfectly. If you've never done this before, it might be worth making up a couple of dummies from scrap wood, breaking them, and using them for practice.

No one has ever brought me a repair to redo that was originally done with hot hide glue.

[Mark Swanson]

Great suggestions Bob, and I agree. This shows the importance of thinking things through before you jump in.

[David King]

Part of that repair involves the original headstock graft which is going to have the old glue in the joint. I'd expect that old glue to be aliphatic. I'm not sure how important that it to the overall strength of any repair but seeing as this is a $200 guitar you may want to limit the hours you put into it if you are planning to charge for your time and expertise. All it has to do is hold up to string tension until the next person knocks it over.

[Dusty Ridge]

Thank you, for your suggestions. I’ll make some jigs & do some practice runs before I do it for real with hot hide glue. I also like the idea of warming the neck in a box.
Thanks again