Beware of strat neck pocket cracks

[Deleted]

Sometime in the life of an aria strat i have, i must have broken the neck pocket, the wood that is supporting the short edge of the neck heel and where the tension-forces of the strings are applied mostly if we subtract the effect of the neck heel screws. So imagine with the guitar stringed and tuned to pitch, that we unscrew the neck screws. All force is applied to this side of the neck pocket. Unfortunately i do not have pics, as i rushed to fix this ASAP, but i might take a pic of the exact location next time i change strings. So, the neck pocket had broken from the inside pickguard side (along the small edge of the neck heel the one just opposite to the heel-accessed truss rod). The whole piece of wood was broken and detached from the body and ... floating. That explains all the intonation problems i had, and also the fact that pickguard would hardly fit in its place between the neck and the bridge and would need some stretching to fit. The string tension was dragging the neck towards the bridge! So, neck pocket cracks are NOT innocent, as they usually say on internet forums. One question is why didn't the screws hold the neck in place... Hmmm maybe i did the trick described above (as i read somewhere on the net) (i.e. unscrewing the neck screws with the strings in in full tension, in order to make the neck seat better in the pocket and thus somehow increase sustain), and that is why the problem was initiated in the first place. Later it sort of solidified this new position, which infact shortens the scale of the guitar..
I glued this with strong bison wood glue. I put a huge pot full of water (pot as in kitchen not potensiometer ) seating on top of the joint for 24 hours and finally it got stronger than wood.

[cynical1]

Neck pocket cracks can run the gamut from innocent little non-issues, all the way up to total loss. A picture, as always, would help quite a bit in recommending next steps.

This isn't necessarily an indication of a cheap, poorly made guitar. Take a look at the back of Steve Vai's EVO:



Sometimes there's a flaw in the wood that isn't always apparent during construction.

HTC1

EDIT: For reference, when gluing softwoods the recommended clamping pressure is around 200-300 pounds per square inch. Hardwoods, such as oak, may require from 400-600 pounds per square inch. Unless that was one extremely huge pot of water, you might want to invest in a few bar clamps.


Bar Clamps.

[Deleted]

Well i guess it was around 20-30 kgr ( ~ 70 pound), and the surface is about two sqr inch, so it probably was too small a value, but i know it worked. How do i know? i am embarrassed to say (because i cheated by not telling the whole truth) but here it is. I compressed the timeline of the whole crack story into a one-time incident. That was a lie. The truth is i noticed the crack long time ago, and had tried to fix this with some greek wood glue (atlacol) which is presented as the goto glue for such occasions. : www.kalogiannis.gr/dyn_images/201041894212729075446319377534Y8u4iF2I6X0418a0ml.jpg .
I guess i did it wrong the first time (some 2 years ago, at the time i joined GN2 when i was trying to fit the scalloped neck into this body. Then some 6-7 days a go, i noticed the piece of wood going floating and while in deep hurry/frustration because being in the middle of soldering session, i very fast without much thinking , and having the neck screwed (very very very bad choice, because it was screwed in the wrong position about 1-2 mm towards the bridge), i glued it down with some fine bison wood glue, with no pressure at all, and it worked fine (but unfortunately with an offset of the 1-2 mm - WRONG!). How do i know that the glue worked? read further. In the middle of a soldering session after screwing - unscrewing the pickguard many times, and every time with difficulty to fit it back, i said to my self.... the neck is wrongly screw with an wrong offset 1-2 mm towards the neck, thats why i had to screw the G-low E strings saddle *that* much to achieve a correct intonation. So i thought to correct this. In a haste (as always) i took a pliers out and went to remove that already glued piece of wood. And then came the next accident. The wood glue was so strong that i managed only to re-break the wood at a different "crack-line" than before.... Well as bad as it sounds at least i knew the glue was strong. Then i re-glued it back in with the correct alignment and applied the heavy pot on top. Did some tests today morning (unscrew the neck screws with strings in full tension) and i measured the clearance between the bridge plate and the pickguard, also unscrewed the pickguard to see if it is moving and it had plenty of clearance, so i know it worked. I also (yesterday) re-did the intonation setup and it was ok this morning, another indication the glue worked.

Man, thanx so much for your input! now i got the other Floyd rose nut coming on the way, so soon i will have more adventures in the lutherie dept!! stay tuned!

[cynical1]

To paraphrase William Congreve, "Fix guitar in haste, we may repent at leisure".

Granted, there are a lot of specialized tools out there for guitar repair, but many repairs can be accomplished with simple woodworking tools.

There are also a boatload of luthier's out there on the Internet disseminating information on guitar repairs that weren't available when I was coming up. Time spent researching these sites, versus guitar forums, would benefit you greatly.

Next time the devil of impatience starts bending your ear, step back and take some time to learn about the problem and the solution.

If you feel you don't have the time to do it right, ask yourself when you're going to have the time to do it twice.

HTC1

[Deleted]

Apr 7, 2013 8:56:34 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

Next time the devil of impatience starts bending your ear, step back and take some time to learn about the problem and the solution.

If you feel you don't have the time to do it right, ask yourself when you're going to have the time to do it twice.

HTC1

so true, there is no excuse for my stupidity. I was lucky the second attempt (re-breaking and re-glueing) worked. I would feel like a total jerk if this didn't work. When i tried re-breaking the piece with a pliers and it broke at a different crack-line it felt so bad. I tried to fix the problem along with total change of all electronic components, (switch, pots, + a new push-pull coil splitting i did for the first time), then i tried to fit in bridge tone control into the game, all in one go.... i definitely must stop being so anarchic. I cannot reach your level of carftmanship or access to tools or workshops but at least i can stop chasing the disaster. Soon i hope i will have pics. Anyway, the moral of the story here is : neck pocket cracks can be seriously bad even if the strat as a whole is not totally killed by it.

[Deleted]

Here are the final (current) pics. From the crack-lines we can see the two different cracks, the original and the second forced artificial as well as the final alignment.

[cynical1]

Did this guitar ever take a header? That's not a normal place for a neck pocket top crack. I think your suspicions of doing the loosen the neck\tighten the neck under string tension might be the culprit...but you'd have to crank the screws almost all the way out to throw it that far offline. Normally, that point of the neck pocket is not a load or stress bearing point.

Was that the original neck for that guitar?

With the clean breaks the pieces appear to have it wouldn't be that hard to re-align and re-glue it. You could even drill and countersink some #2 or #4 wood screws there just to make sure it doesn't walk out again.

I have to give it you, man, you do seem to have some unique issues. I bet your guitar tech just loves you.

HTC1

[Deleted]

Apr 7, 2013 22:32:58 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

Did this guitar ever take a header? That's not a normal place for a neck pocket top crack.

Yes many times, but the crack most likely happened, when i tried to fit a slightly oversized neck heel (the scalloped neck i have in the other malmsteen partscaster). This was about 2 years ago, when i joined GN2. I didn't pay much attention then, just glued it with some generic wood glue. Apparently that was not enough.

Apr 7, 2013 22:32:58 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

Was that the original neck for that guitar?

Yes this is the original neck. I bought this guitar in 1984 (my first one). Recently (xmas) i had it refreted and re-nut-ed, and this week and the one before i have been struggling with re-doing all the electronics (switch, push pull vol pot for coil split, new tone pots, new capacitors, tone in the bridge pup). It all turned out well.

Apr 7, 2013 22:32:58 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

With the clean breaks the pieces appear to have it wouldn't be that hard to re-align and re-glue it. You could even drill and countersink some #2 or #4 wood screws there just to make sure it doesn't walk out again.

I have to give it you, man, you do seem to have some unique issues. I bet your guitar tech just loves you.

HTC1

I think it is pretty stable for the moment, with the neck screws in tight or not. Now in my electric guitar "career" (est. 1984) i have addressed a tech only twice! Once for fret dressing for the Carvin DC135 (which i bought second hand, its a leftie, i converted to righty), and once recently for refret of this Aria. Overall, the Aria now is my no1 guitar. This is the guitar i recorded those nu-metal tracks during the linux audio exploration phase if you recall.
I have the two books by Erlewine about guitar repair + all the info i get here i don't need a tech unless for the very crucial stuff.