The guitar does not tolerate rough and unceremonious handling: very often the instrument suffers when dropped, from all kinds of “bruises” or during improper transportation.

Any damage not only affects the sound of the guitar, but often completely destroys it. However, in most cases the instrument can be repaired.

If damage appears on the soundboard or neck of your six-string friend, do not rush to part with it. Now we will tell you how and with what to seal cracks on a guitar.

Guitar glue - overview of options

The guitar is a very sensitive instrument and this should be taken into account when choosing glue and conducting repair work. The adhesive composition should not interfere with the unique resonating properties of noble wood.

In this case, the glue must reliably connect the elements being glued, because very often cracks form in places of greatest load.

What glue is best for guitar repair?

There are several options:

Titebond is a one-component, universal wood adhesive popular all over the world. Perhaps this is the most ideal guitar repair glue.

Titebond is resistant to moisture and elevated temperatures. The composition sets almost instantly and firmly connects the bonded surfaces; you just need to press them firmly against each other for a while.

Hide wood glue. It is produced from the inner part of raw leather (hide), tannery waste and gelatin.

This glue requires preparation. To obtain a ready-to-use solution, you need to pour the dry components with water in the proportions specified by the manufacturer and leave to swell for a while.

The swollen substance is boiled until tender in a water bath. The glue turns out to be quite fluid when warm. As it cools, it forms a solid structure and therefore does not disturb the acoustic properties of wood. With strict adherence to the technology, it is possible to achieve a special strength of the adhesive connection.

EDP ​​(epoxy glue)- universal two-component adhesive, which is sold as a mixing kit. It includes directly epoxy resin and hardener.

Preparing the composition is as easy as shelling pears: just mix the resin with the hardener in the proportion specified by the manufacturer.

When preparing glue, you need to take into account that it hardens almost instantly, so the surfaces to be glued should be prepared in advance - cleaned of dust and any contaminants.

How to glue a guitar neck with your own hands - step-by-step instructions

Guitar headstock chipping is one of the most common problems. To eliminate it, you will need not only wood glue, but also a clamp - an auxiliary device designed for rigid fixation (tight pressing) of the parts to be glued to each other.

The gluing process itself is quite simple, but requires care.

The sequence of actions is as follows:

1. We remove the strings and mechanics (pegs) from the guitar;
2. Degrease and dry the surface;
3. Prepare the adhesive and apply it evenly to the fracture site;
4. We connect the surfaces to be glued together as smoothly as possible;
5. We tighten it with a clamp (you may need two of them);
6. Wipe off excess glue;
7. Leave for several hours (in accordance with the instructions for the glue).

To do this, you need to drill a blind hole of a suitable diameter in the neck and insert a tongue lubricated with glue into it.

How to glue cracks on a guitar body

Cracks on the soundboard of a guitar are caused by drying out of the wood. They not only spoil appearance guitars, but also disrupt the sound of the instrument, so this defect needs to be eliminated.

The simplest and quick way The solution to the problem is to seal the crevice with cyanoacrylate glue (ordinary superglue).

If the crack is wide, you must first rub wood dust into it, then add superglue. A narrow crack can be glued immediately by simply pouring glue on top.

So that the guitar pleases with its impeccable sound long years, it must be handled with care and observed the following recommendations:

• The guitar must be carried and stored in a hard case (case);
• If in the room where the tool is stored there is low humidity(less than 40%), a humidifier must be used. You can buy it at a musical instrument store or make it yourself from an ordinary sponge;
• Wooden musical instruments very sensitive to temperature changes. A guitar brought in from the cold should be allowed to warm up until room temperature before the game;
• Putting the guitar away long-term storage, you need to loosen the strings.

It seems that with the popularization of electronic music, the guitar has faded into the background. But practice shows that this tool continues to evolve. The guitar today is played by true connoisseurs of rock, instrumentals and other musical styles. Often guitarists are faced with the need to repair their favorite instruments.

Professional services are not cheap. Allows you to save money do-it-yourself repair. Many breakdowns can be fixed without resorting to the help of specialists service centers. Experienced musicians will tell you how to fix a guitar with your own hands. Take their advice and restore your favorite instrument.

Repair of the dumpling

The type of repair work required depends directly on the type of tool failure.

You can seal a cracked dumpling yourself. Use special epoxy glue for this. It will provide a strong bond. When carrying out repair work, it is important to insert the glue as deep into the crack as possible. To do this, dilute the latter to the maximum, fill it with epoxy compound, release it, remove excess glue, compress the glued damage tightly with clamps, and let it dry. Then remove the clamps.

Next, you need to check the guitar's tuning. If extraneous sounds appear during playing, sand the heel of the neck inside. The sound effect can be caused by protruding glue residues. Sanding allows them to be removed.

Guitar doesn't work? No problem!

In this case, it is recommended to begin the repair by checking all the strings with their own unisons, harmonics on the 12th fret. The check is ideally carried out several times. It eliminates the string factor of malfunction. If the problem is not in the strings, you need to look for it in the structural elements of the guitar.

Inspect the neck of the instrument. If the cut of the nut is parallel to the neck, roll it towards the pegs. Guitar still won't play? Try re-gluing the snare.

Snare repair

If this element of the instrument comes off and rises when playing, it is necessary to re-glue it. To do this, the snare is removed from the guitar and cleaned of old glue. Apply to the plane new line-up. Classic version gluing – epoxy. But it does affect the sound. Special wood glue is ideal for repairing the snare. The glued one is clamped into the supporting struts. They must fix the snare in at least 3 places. After the glue has dried, the spacers are removed, the guitar is checked for sound and adjusted.

Everything in this world is not eternal, everything breaks, is destroyed and becomes unusable. This also applies to the guitar, which, by the way, is a rather fragile instrument that requires proper and careful care. But if suddenly it’s still a little damaged what to do ?

The easiest way out is to contact guitar master. This is such a guy (very lady) who makes these very guitars to order and can fix yours maximum speed and quality. The problem is that craftsmen charge money for their work, and it’s worth admitting that the money is not small.

If the guitar has received severe damage (the neck has cracked, the spring inside the soundboard has fallen off), then it would still be wiser to pay money to a professional. But if the damage is not great, then guitar repair It is quite possible to do this at home using your own hands and simple tools:

The problem is that the strings get along

Cause:
Strings too close to saddles

Solution:
The strings get along because when they are pulled, the strings come into contact with the metal frets, resulting in such an unpleasant rattling sound. There are several solutions.

If the guitar has a truss rod, then you just need to adjust it to the height you need, that is, to the height where the strings sound normal, without rattling. But not all guitars have a truss rod, so Grandpa’s old file comes to our aid, and better skin one. If you use sandpaper, it is better to bring it to a flat block and sand it as if you were working with a plane.

Our goal is to file the frets a little to increase the distance to the strings. This needs to be done carefully and evenly, and I would advise not to touch the first 2-3 frets at all, but to grind down the others. Sharpen carefully and slowly. If it suddenly turns out that one fret is very sharply ground, there is no need to compare everything to it. It's better to have one fret lower than to ruin everything.

The strings are so far from the fretboard that it becomes impossible to pluck a chord.

Solution:
And here, with the presence of an anchor rod, the problem is solved in a couple of minutes. But if it’s not there, the situation becomes more complicated because if we grind down the frets, we can build it up no.

There is only one way out - to make the cuts deeper in the upper sill. This is done using a thin - thin file. And again, you should act very carefully and slowly so that the strings do not drop too low.

If you did go a little overboard, you can increase the saddle back by dropping a little melted plastic into the gap under the strings or by sticking a little hard leather into the gap.

The guitar began to make the sound of a dull submarine

Cause:
Most likely one of the springs inside the housing has come unstuck.

Solution:
It is better to contact a specialist, but you can glue it in place yourself using Moment glue. The difficulty is that you have to act blindly and with one hand. Even if you managed to pour the glue where you need it, it’s not a fact that you will be able to place this small board where you need it. However, the task is quite doable; before my eyes, a spring that had fallen off was glued into place blindly and it held on for many, many years.

There is a crack in the heel of the neck

Solution:
Again, it’s better to contact a specialist. But if the crack is not deep and not long, then fill it generously with epoxy and press it with a clamp. A day in a dry, warm place and the problem should be resolved.

In general, friends, if your guitar is expensive, run to a master, don’t do amateur work. If the cost of the guitar<100$ то guitar repair will cost you more than the guitar itself, so grab your instruments and go!

This section is dedicated to guitar adjustment and repair, without services guitar maker, that is, at home.

Adjusting the height of the strings above the guitar neck.

Before you repair your guitar, familiarize yourself with the structure of the guitar, guitar repairman.

Measure the distance between the twelfth fret (the metal strip cut into the neck after the twelfth fret) and the sixth string.

For metal strings, this distance should be 3 - 4 mm. Nylon strings have 4 - 4.5 mm.

If the distance is greater, it will be difficult to press the strings to the neck of the guitar. If it is less, then the strings will touch the frets and rattle. In general, the shorter this distance, the better.

Guitar repair and guitar maker

It will not be necessary if this distance on a six-string guitar, the neck of a guitar or any other acoustic guitar, is adjusted by the screw that secures the neck to the body. Turn the screw with a guitar wrench (usually a square wrench) until you reach the desired string height. It is better to reduce the distance until the strings begin to touch the saddles and then increase it a little so that the rattling disappears.

It is not difficult and you don't need to be a guitar luthier to adjust the height of the strings above the neck of your guitar.

If the neck is glued into the body, then to change the distance between the strings and the neck, you need to sharpen the bottom nut. It is installed in a stand and is made of soft material. If this does not help, you will have to contact a guitar specialist.

Guitar neck, repair

Minor guitar repairs.

If the heel comes off guitar neck from the body (for acoustic guitars with a glued neck), then in this case it is better to take the musical instrument to a guitar maker. But (for desperate people) you can attach the neck to the body of an acoustic guitar with a bolt.

To do this, you need to drill a hole in the heel of the neck and the body and secure this structure with a bolt. Place a washer on the inside of the body on the ringlet (the fingerboard for fastening the neck), the bigger the better.

If the stand begins to peel off, you need to remove it completely and clean the base to a flat surface (since the stand is most likely deformed). Then glue it exactly to the same place and (if you don’t mind the guitar) secure the stand with bolts or screws.

If the pegs move tightly, you need to lubricate the mechanism. A couple of drops of liquid machine oil will help.

How to change strings.

Thread the string into the bridge and secure it. At the end of the strings there are special thickened tips that hold the strings.

If they are not there, then secure the strings as follows. Thread the string into the stand, pull the end of the string from below and thread it into the resulting loop, as shown in the picture.

For the first three thin strings, you can thread the tip through the same loop twice, as shown in the figure.

After you have secured one end of the string in the stand, secure the other in the peg mechanism, but do not mix up the pegs, remember that there is a specific peg for each string.

Start rotating the peg so that you wind two or three turns of the string, this is necessary so that the strings do not get out of tune.

Before tensioning the strings, perform the following operation to ensure that the string is stretched immediately: pull each string by hand from the headstock of the guitar, to the bridge.

Of all the strings, the fourth one breaks the fastest. To extend its life, rearrange and turn the string once a month to prevent it from fraying.

For all acoustic guitars, replacing strings is similar, but the process of tuning the guitar to the tuning of the guitar is different, for example, a seven-string guitar has a different tuning from the standard one.

To extend the life of a 12-string guitar, you can resort to a little trick; it is described in the article how to tune a 12-string guitar.

That's all the basic techniques for home repair of types of acoustic guitars. In case of more serious problems (the neck of the guitar or soundboard has become damaged, cracks have appeared, and so on), it is better to contact a guitar specialist, otherwise the instrument may be completely damaged, and no repair of guitars will help. And you need to remember about passive protective measures, such as a guitar case or a guitar strap.

Today, in the era of the Internet, a huge information space has become available, and much has become possible in principle. Including for those who are interested in guitar building. Today there is access to almost any data and information about this. Now you can easily find out how real, high-quality guitars are made, download drawings, descriptions, get acquainted with the parameters, etc. There are the most interesting forums online (mostly in English), where there is a treasure trove of everything related to the guitar, and where they will definitely help and advise. Many masters from all over the world willingly share their creativity and knowledge with other people who are interested in guitar building or who simply love the guitar. It would seem that everything is laid out on a silver platter, take it and calmly make a guitar... Anything from an entry-level guitar to a serious concert instrument. But it was not there……………. One “guitar” signed up for me, at least in appearance it resembled a guitar. A number of incompatibilities in the design immediately caught my eye - somehow it all looked more than strange, it looked like assembling a car from parts from different brands of automakers - a body from a Mercedes, a hood from a BMW, wheels from a ZIL... But these are all trifles, as it turned out, and therefore we will omit this aspect... There was no sound there in the first place. There was not even a hint of any guitar timbre... What came from there was definitely like some kind of groan from underground... With the strings stretched, the soundboard bulged out like a huge tumor, like an abscess on the body. The anchor did not work, sawdust fell from the resonator hole, the entire body “walked” as if it were made of cardboard. Although the weight of this mediocre “creation” was quite noticeable... In general, this is not even a souvenir level of the so-called. “guitars”, but rather a prop... (although the money paid for this is far from being paid for a prop... to put it mildly)... Even the worst factory guitar from Soviet times will be of a significantly higher level. A $50 Chinese guitar will be a clear winner. But for the person who asked this “guitar” to be brought back to life, this is a dear memory, and therefore, after the scope of repairs was discussed, the “patient” was accepted for “cure.”

From that moment on, let’s say, resuscitation began. The situation is critical, to say the least. Therefore, you need to use everything that is possible, and even that which would seem not from this “opera”. This is what “it” looked like initially - a huge, heavy “stand” for strings - in the form of a brick, a soundboard made of plywood, the bottom and sides are also plywood and thin, only the “neck” looks like it’s made of wood…. if I'm not mistaken, it's birch... The headstock design was unceremoniously stolen from Ovation, apparently it was difficult to come up with its own shape... The tuning mechanics are a complete waste! This cannot be used at all. Nowhere... Naturally - “in the oven” is like that... Let’s replace it with “Grover”. The fret pad did not give way in the usual way - by heating and a heated thin knife... However, it easily flew off when prying it with a chisel. It turned out that it was glued with epoxy resin, which is simply unacceptable. Epoxy resin is not used at all in guitars (or any other musical instruments), for obvious and natural reasons. At least this is bad manners!

We open the deck.

Carefully remove the white plastic edging and separate the “deck” from the body. It’s difficult to describe what we see in normal human words, so let’s call it ….. ……… (unprintable expression). The “equipped soundboard” weighed about 760 grams..... (the entire equipped body of my guitar, without the neck, weighs between 620 - 680 grams) The shells were smeared from the inside with some kind of non-drying adhesive bykay, to which sawdust and chips, in considerable quantities. Apparently, in this case, everything possible was deliberately done to exclude any sound and even a hint of it (Monsieur knows a lot about perversions)... Although, in fact, all masters strive on the contrary - to do everything possible to ensure that there is sound. Still, the guitar is valued precisely for this. The guitar is valued and loved for its sound.

The manufacturer forgot (or did not know) to glue the footer over the anchor, so the anchor did not work, and accordingly was an extra and rather heavy part. The channel for the anchor is straight, which also will not allow the anchor rod to work fully. But such “little things” were apparently missed there too... Well, okay, we’ll fix it. We make a footer, glue it in, after everything has dried we plan it and process it to the level of the neck plane -

The shell on the bass side is not solid, as is usually the case with normal and even not very normal guitars, but consists of two parts... which is simply immoral in relation to the guitar... Therefore, we glue the required liner stick to the joint, and reinforce both shells in In general, by gluing vertical springs, then we add “mass” to the shells, in the required quantity, which is necessary in this case. The “bottom” also needed to be strengthened longitudinally, because we need a more rigid and stable “bottom” for work -

Regarding the assemblies of the upper and lower dumplings, I will modestly remain silent, since everything is already visible and understandable... I will also not talk about the upper and lower thresholds made of plastic, which is slightly harder than plasticine. Let me just say that because of this, this “guitar” did not build on the frets. But the fact that the main upper spring was missing in the small oval is not just a gross unacceptable mistake, it already speaks of something more... Naturally, a new spring was made, of the required thickness and height, taking into account access to adjust the anchor. In this case, it was necessary to glue it first to the shells, and then the deck was glued to it -

Then everything is simple - add the missing fragments to the counter-shells (curf). It was also necessary to add four springs (arranged crosswise in the photo) to the bottom of the “large oval” and bring them to the desired denominator with the “mass” of the shells. In this case, you need to cling to everything, just to correct at least a little the interaction of the three components - the deck, the bottom and the sides. Then we vacuum everything and coat the inside with shellac. This will at least protect the plywood body from the effects of moisture, and accordingly the plywood will not peel off and warp for a sufficient time -

Making a new deck.

How to make a new guitar soundboard? It's not as difficult as it might seem at first glance, you just need to arm yourself with everything you need. In this case, we will make a deck from Canadian Red Cedar (which, in fact, is not true cedar), with a simple mortise rosette from Maya wood. This is a very beautiful tree; in daylight it shimmers and shimmers no worse than mother-of-pearl. For the future deck, we take two book-cut blanks, glue them together, having previously precisely aligned them, after the glue seam has completely dried (I usually give it 24 hours), draw a profile according to the template and cut it out. Then, having calculated the desired location of the resonator hole, we begin the process of inserting the socket. When it remains to cut the resonator hole, it will not hurt to bring the inner side of the soundboard to the required thickness, but with a small margin, this will make it easier to “maneuver” later in terms of the required thicknesses. .You can see everything in the photo -

Since this “guitar” had steel strings, even after repair it will be “steel”; its owner prefers to play on steel strings. Many of the landmarks here are not particularly selectable, so we will “sharpen” them for OM. But we will not make the spring system as is standard, for example in factory Dreadnought style guitars, but a little differently. After everything is done, adjusted and all the springs are glued, you can prepare the deck for gluing. We check everything several times, measure it and then glue it to the body -

The glue must be allowed to dry completely, then, if necessary, you can slightly “smooth” the scraper and then you can mill the channel for the edging, in this case the edging is white, plastic. It needs to be glued with a special glue that is suitable for this. You can press it with adhesive paper tape - this edging is quite pliable -

After everything is done and dried, we correct the glued edging a little, and at the same time remove the old varnish, but in this case, be careful not to damage the thin veneer that is glued here on top of the body in the form of a cladding.

Making a new fretboard.

During the repair process, a new fretboard was also prepared. For this, high-grade Indian Rosewood was used. The workpiece was sawn to the required size, brought to the required thickness, cuts were made for the fret saddles, the saddles themselves were installed, and then work with markers (the number and location of markers is the customer’s request) -

Making a stand for strings.

The string rest is a very important part for a guitar. Archival. It must meet many requirements, but at the same time be very light. I talked about this in more detail in the publication - The blank is taken from the same solid Indian Rosewood as the fretboard. First, rough processing was carried out, then adjustments were made for the required weight. The finished stand is coated with Danish Black Walnut oil…. After the oil has dried, it can be glued -