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"Jackson Guitar - Broken Headstock"
Repair Tutorial
This instrument was sent up from Toronto.
It is always heartbreaking when this type of damage happens.
In many cases people will completely write off the guitar and toss it in the garbage.
Although this is a fairly "big ticket " repair; in this case, the money is well invested.
This is an American made neck - through - body "real deal "
Jackson.
When you have a guitar that initially sold for 2 or 3 thousand dollars;
then it is definitely worth considering a restoration.
By design, this headstock is inherently prone to this type of damage.
It was a bit of a trigonometry exercise to fabricate the replacement
maple piece for this particular job.
The dowels were installed to strengthen the joint
and to prevent the maple piece from
"drifting" under clamping pressure.
Once the pieces where perfectly mated ..
I fabricated an overlay of curly maple veneer ( .060" thick )
for the face and the rear of the headstock ;
essentially "sandwiching" the previous dowelled joint
between 2 layers of maple.
The original thickness of the face was reduced by .060" ,
before the .060" veneer was glued.
I performed the same procedure for the back of the headstock.
After the face veneer was dry , I proceeded to lay out the 6th string
tuning machine hole, boring and reaming it out
to match the original placement.
While I was working on this guitar, I had an
inquiry asking whether or not the TechDeck could handle a "V" shaped guitar,
so I decided to post these shots for the benefit of the new
TechDeck customer.
The back of the headstock was also disc sanded down to raw wood
to receive the .060" maple veneer overlay.
The ledge was then cut, to receive the binding.
All of the final preparation for the binding
was finished up with scrapers and chisels to ensure a good crisp 90 degree
ledge for the binding.
Snake skin / black face underlay and Jackson logo will be next.
Voila ! ... Back from the brink of death.
Joel Dwyer, Shred-Meister and
long-time customer / friend from Toronto,
long-time customer / friend from Toronto,
swung by yesterday afternoon to hang out,
pickup his Snakeskin Jackson
( after Darcy's miraculous finish restoration ! ).
Joel also brought along his Bengal Jackson.
I skimmed out the pickup cavities for the ( slightly larger )
EMG pickups that he has switched over to ... on both guitars.
Thanks Joel .... it was a real pleasure
hanging out in the shop for the afternoon
and getting caught up !
