Jinder Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 I arrived at my gig this evening and opened the case of my SJ200 to find that somehow (whilst still in it's case, which I don't understand), my poor guitar had suffered a headstock break...this is the second one to have happened to it in the last seven years, and this one is about 8mm forward of the last one. It's a pretty horrific break, and when the last one happened my luthier advised me that if it happened again, the guitar would be as good as condemned, in terms of being an everyday workhorse instrument, without replacing the entirety of the neck, which is something I couldn't even consider at the moment, financially speaking. It's a huge shame and I'm utterly distraught-my SJ200 has been all over the world with me, and is the main guitar on pretty much every record I've ever made...if it's game over, I'll be heartbroken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-200 Koa Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 Sorry to hear about the SJ-200 but it may have answered your Dove question from earlier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkharmony Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 Oh man.... I am so sorry. But don't assume anything. Get it to your luthier and hope for the best. I've seen some headstock breaks that looked impossible to fix end up good as new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuestionMark Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 I was pretty sure my '72 SJ was dead after its headstock broke. An authorized Gibson repairman got it back, though. Prior to that the body by the neck was caving in and the repairman pronounced its life as likely over...but, then the repairman got re-energized (at my urging and plea, I suppose)and ended up fixing it. My suggestion is to cop a sincere plea with the repairman...puhleeassse fix it! In your case it sounds like the original repair held, if its 8mm forward of the last one. Based on it not being in exactly the same spot, it is possible it could very well be fixable since its not in the same spot and the former spot is holding in place. I would think possibly the problem would really be if it broke again in exactly the same spot...meaning the same spot may not hold. One never knows until one cops a sincere plea. Good luck and let us all know the outcome. QM aka Jazzman Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modoc_333 Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 if it's that far from the first break, and a clean break, then i see no reason to retire the guitar. i would take it to someone else for a 2nd opinion. got pics? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macaibhistin Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 How does this happen? I don't get it. Would love to see a pic of this break. I agree, it's horrific. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigKahune Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 My condolences to you on the unexpected damage to your SJ200. It's not the first time I've heard of spontaneous headstock breaks on Gibsons. In the last year there have been a couple reported on the electric forums. One had no previous damage and the guitar wasn't more that 1 or 2 years old. Here's hoping the damage can be repaired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterGibs Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 Jinder, I am sorry, man... ..... Till now I did not say a word about it but now is the time to tell: on the 23.11.2009 I took part in a radio show here in Sofia on the second national radio station "Hristo Botev". As the building is guarded by the police I was waiting for the lady who leads this radio show to come to take me to the studio and I hold the hardshell case of M-R GIBS in a vertical position. She came on the stairs, I took off my hand from the hardshell case for a second to say hallo to her and M-R GIBS fell on the ground... The lady turned all pale and said:"... Lord, the guitar is broken..." I said:"No, it is in the hardshell case" but when we opened it - there was this headstock crack... I was sooooooooo ashamed and still I am! How could I let my lovely dear friend for a second to fall down and to break his head??? !!! Next day I drove 250 km to Kazanlak - the town where lives my friend - the magician master luthier Galin Penev: http://www.penevguitars.hit.bg/ who fixed M-R GIBS for five days. I am still ashamed of what I have done, but the guitar sounded even better after the repair. Jinder, I am sure that this crack can be fixed. And that you don't have to replace the neck this time. For sure there are no irreparable cracks. That was what my luthier told me many times. Those things are soooo fragile..... Don't loose your bird! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertjohn Posted April 8, 2010 Share Posted April 8, 2010 Jinder, if you need a second opinion, have a word with the good Doctor. A very good friend, teacher, mentor and playing partner. http://guitarsurgery.brinkster.net/default.aspx He's a top bloke and knows everything about Gibsons. Failing that I have some Resin W in the shed which you are welcome to! Seriously, I hope you get it fixed and it becomes another scar celebrating the Jinder Mojo. PS tell him Peter, his accountant, sent you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rar Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 I arrived at my gig this evening and opened the case of my SJ200 to find that somehow (whilst still in it's case' date=' which I don't understand), my poor guitar had suffered a headstock break...[/quote'] Headstock breaks are almost always on cased guitars. It's basically a whiplash injury due to moving guitar+case coming to a sudden halt in a collision. A drop of just a couple of feet is quite sufficient if the case lands the "right" way. -- Bob R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 I'm just echoing everyone else, but the fact that it's a 'new' break negates what your repair guy said about 'if it ever breaks again'. One break has nothing to do with the other. It's very likely this new break is repairable and has just as good a chance of holding as the first once repaired. The fact that the first repair held up while a new crack occurred is a testimony to the first repair. I'm a firm believer that any headstock fracture or break can be repaired. As I have often said, fixing it is the easy part; the hard part is making it look like it never happened. http://www.angelfire.com/me4/ksdaddy/repair_yamaha_headstock.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taylor Player Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Jinder, I hope everyone here is right and you can get the repair done. It would be a shame to retire the J200 due to injury! It needs to finish what it started and retire with you in the end....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buc McMaster Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Ouch. I have seen many, many Gibsons with broken headstocks over the years.......mostly on Les Pauls due to their overall weight. Some are repairable, some not so much, as it depends on the break. A shattered, splintered break is a tough one but it can be done. You might consider a headstock transplant if it's really bad. The headstock from one can be "grafted" onto another with pretty good results. Angled, clean cuts at the proper place in both makes for a single seam, clean glue joint that will be plenty strong. Sorry to hear of your misfortune, Jinder. It is likely a repairable thing though by some means short of a new neck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanvillRob Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 I'm with everyone else.... the new break can or can't be repaired on it's own merits, and is unrelated to the previous break. I know a luthier will go through all kinds of gyrations, but when the headstock on my Jubilee was broken on an Amtrac train, (20+ years ago), I did nothing more than glue it back together with Elmer's Wood Glue, use some hand clamps to hold it in place, and leave it for about a week. I mean, it's been over 20 years..... never another issue! I understand the attachment one can have with a beautiful instrument...PLEASE try to save your old friend! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onewilyfool Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Jinder, sorry to hear about your loss of guitar. But don't give up. Maybe KSdaddy has a neck he salviged from another project, or you can find someone who has a crushed sound box SJ200??? There are necks out there. BY the way, sometimes the CASE can be the problem with snapped necks, so check that out before using that case again.....good luck....My luthier fixed one of my headstock cracks, by sanding down the back of the headstock, repairing the crack and then putting a veneer piece over the back of the headstock. So the headstock had veneer on the top of the headstock and at the back, and was stronger than original....kind of like plywood......once stained, you couldn't see the repair at all. By the way, I checked with the Martin Factory, and they were going to charge me $1000 for a totally new neck replacement. Just FYI, and a local luthier could probably do better than that. Don't give up hope!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jefleppard Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 i think everyone feels for you. sounds like ksd knows the score here though. just think of evel knievel. hundreds of broken bones. he got back on the horse everytime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnt Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Jinder' date=' if you need a second opinion, have a word with the good Doctor. A very good friend, teacher, mentor and playing partner. http://guitarsurgery.brinkster.net/default.aspx He's a top bloke and knows everything about Gibsons. Failing that I have some Resin W in the shed which you are welcome to! Seriously, I hope you get it fixed and it becomes another scar celebrating the Jinder Mojo. PS tell him Peter, his accountant, sent you.[/quote'] Jinder, Peters right if anyone can fix it then Robbie can! Practical offer to you, if you need her ferried up there I am often in Suffolk and live in Kent. You can hold my Es335 hostage until I return your baby to you!!!! I am serious by the way between Peter and Me we will help with the transport All best, you have too much invested in that guitar to look at anything but repair. BR john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 If I were King of the Forest (which I'm not), I would rout an short wide channel in the neck blanks and inlay a piece of wood, probably the same species as the neck, then rout for the truss rod. The lamination (for lack of a better word) would make the base of the headstock much stronger. It's inherently weak there because of the truss rod channel. Some claim that's one reason they added the volute, and others refute that logic because they still broke there... okay, but how many did NOT get broken becaue of the extra wood of the volute? Pretty hard to answer that. The inset of wood would be hidden once the fingerboard and headstock overlay was added. Yellow = extra rout: Another alternative would be a thicker headstock overlay. It would be unsightly on an unbound headstock but could easily be done on a bound one. Make the overlay just as thick as the binding or even thicker (with thicker binding); no net increase in the headstock thickness but it would almost be a bi-laminate and would be stronger. But I'm not King of the Forest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murph Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Sorry to hear it. Here's wishing you the very best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanvillRob Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 If I were King of the Forest .............KSDaddy............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowster Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Jinder' date=' if you need a second opinion, have a word with the good Doctor. A very good friend, teacher, mentor and playing partner. http://guitarsurgery.brinkster.net/default.aspx He's a top bloke and knows everything about Gibsons. Failing that I have some Resin W in the shed which you are welcome to! Seriously, I hope you get it fixed and it becomes another scar celebrating the Jinder Mojo. PS tell him Peter, his accountant, sent you.[/quote'] here albert , i've met robbie a few time he plays in the same band with my cousin stuart, he's the one with the wine robbie was there that night at the glasgow fruit market Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanvillRob Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 ..... Till now I did not say a word about it but now is the time to tell: on the 23.11.2009 I took part in a radio show here in Sofia on the second national radio station "Hristo Botev". As the building is guarded by the police I was waiting for the lady who leads this radio show to come to take me to the studio and I hold the hardshell case of M-R GIBS in a vertical position. She came on the stairs' date=' I took off my hand from the hardshell case for a second to say hallo to her and M-R GIBS fell on the ground... The lady turned all pale and said:"... Lord, the guitar is broken..." I said:"No, it is in the hardshell case" but when we opened it - there was this headstock crack... I was sooooooooo ashamed and still I am! How could I let my lovely dear friend for a second to fall down and to break his head??? !!! Next day I drove 250 km to Kazanlak - the town where lives my friend - the magician master luthier Galin Penev: [/quote'] Okay....now I'm sick to my stomach! I started keeping ALL my guitars IN their cases, with the cases latched. I only keep them on stands when I'm playing them, (I fear an earthquake will knock them over, or off the wall). I won't put my guitars on the stand in the kitchen with my dogs loose..... if they were to knock on over, I don't want the headstock hitting the hard tile. Ruined my whole day, Krasi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 My 14 year old Golden Retriever ran past my '64 Southern Jumbo, which was in a cheap no-name stand. His tail swiped across it and it fell forward onto the floor, KA-BANG! No damage whatsoever. The El-Kabong sound rang loud and true though. I threw out all three stands I owned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkharmony Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 My 14 year old Golden Retriever ran past my '64 Southern Jumbo' date=' which was in a cheap no-name stand. His tail swiped across it and it fell forward onto the floor, KA-BANG![/quote'] I half expected that to say "My '96 Golden Retriever ran past my '64 Southern Jumbo..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taylor Player Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Amazing how attached to these hunks of wood & steel we are.......... Even our friends hunks of wood & steel...... Even our internet friends hunks of wood & steel...... I do love how everyone wants to help though..... good job everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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