How To Repair A Broken Guitar Neck With Gorilla Glue OR Is Gorilla Glue Really The Strongest Glue On Planet Earth?

How To Repair A Broken Guitar Neck With Gorilla Glue

Here's what happened.

It actually happened in the dark and I think alcohol was involved.

Crash! "Noooo!"

"My Gibson LesPaul Is Broken!!!!"

. At the weakest possible spot too.

There isn't much left holding the head stock on besides the laminate on the front.

The neck is dove tailed and glued on so there is no chance of replacing it.

What to do? Get some Gorilla Glue!

Ok,First read the directions.

They are simple enough "Damp it Glue it Clamp it"

And it's best to do it out side on something your not worried about getting glue on, we used an old towel.

Step One: Damp it.

Here we used a cotton swab and tipped it down to get the water all over in there.

The directions say to damp one side unless it's a hard wood and this is mahogany so we want it good and wet on both sides.

Ok, we got it good and wet all the way down inside there then we squeezed it a little to push out the excess water and then let it sit for about 5 minutes to let the water soak in good.

Step Two: Glue it.

Pulling the break apart to make sure the Gorilla Glue gets all the way in side.

The directions say not to use too much, and they are right because Gorilla Glue will expand to four times it original size as it dries but for a job like this too much seemed better than not enough.

Next give it a squeeze by hand to push out the excess glue before getting ready to put the clamp on. we found that a drier sheet works great for wiping away the excess glue.

You really don't want to get this stuff on your hands.

We use mineral spirits to clean our hands before we washed them in water because water is what activates the glue.

Step Three: Clamp it.

First we put the clamp on once to give it a good squeeze and get more excess glue out and then took the clamp off and wiped down again.

Looks ready to go!

Here you see we put a drier sheet in between the clamp and the break so that when the Gorilla Glue expands it will be soaked up by the drier sheet and hopefully not glue the clamp to the guitar.

It's clamped.

Here you can see the Gorilla Glue expanding out as it dries it will make clean up easier later if you keep wiping the excess away for about a half hour as it dries.

The direction say to let it dry for 3-4 hours, we left it for 6.

Time to unclamp it.

Well the clamp didn't stick.

But the drier sheet sure did.

Just peel off what you can by hand a little sand paper can fix the rest. besides we were after function not fashion here.

Next string it up and try it??

Almost.

Gorilla Glue is incredibly strong but we want to make damn sure this works so now we need to add a little reinforcement to our glue job.

It needs two screws added.

We predrilled first so not to cause a split when the screws go in. making sure to get into the "meat" of the other wood and being careful not to drill into the cut out on the other side for the truss rod adjuster.

Then we drilled out the tops of the holes just a little with a bigger drill bit so the screws would counter set in flush. We also put a drop of water then a drop of Gorilla Glue in each of the holes and the put the screws in.

Now we wait again for the glue to dry.