Takamine D Series Acoustic Guitar - Headstock Repair

The headstock of this Takamine D Series Acoustic Guitar "snapped right off while it was still in its gig bag," so said the distraught owner. I suspect that he'd been using way too heavy strings, and the poor guitar couldn't handle the tension. As luck would have it, the headstock had sheared off at an angle from the neck. This was good, as I had a wide surface area for gluing.

At this juncture, I regret to inform you that I clean forgot to take a picture of the broken headstock before repairs were carried out ... bummer! Anyhow, after gluing back the headstock to the neck, I used a nyatoh backstrap to reinforce the repair. Note that the backstrap blank had to be pre-softened before bending it to conform to the curve of the back of the headstock/neck.

This pre-softening was carried out using a kitchen steamer, much like what one would use for steaming dumplings (pau). Without this pre-softening, the backstrap blank would have cracked when I force-clamped it to the back of the headstock.

I'd wanted to cover the splits and cracks on the headstock face with teak veneer, but the owner was not willing to lose the "Takamine" logo. As such, I had to settle for a super glue job. Finally, the back of the headstock and neck were stained with StewMac's ColorTone Liquid Stain diluted with ethanol, and refinished with Tru-Oil.