What kind of glue is used to glue the neck to the body?

[MistaT]

Hello,

My electric guitar that I am building from scratch just had the neck joint fail. I have been working with wood for many years and never had a joint fail on me before, So I am wondering what I did wrong.

I made sure there was no sawdust, or any dirt on the joint, and I clamped it for 24 hours using a fresh bottle of Titebond wood glue. It happened when I was lightly tapping the studs in for the Tune-o-matic bridge. Obviously the vibration of the tapping set it off.

So my question is this, what kind of glue do other people use for building their guitars? Particularly when gluing the neck to the body:

Here is a picture of the neck being clamped to the body:




Thanks in advance for your input.

-- Mike

[spud1950]

Well, I haven't built a guitar but I've certainly done a lot of reading about it and done my share of various woodworking projects over the years. Tite Bond and hide glue are definately the most popular glues of choice for guitar building, hide glue being used when it's desired to more easily take glue joints apart, such as in the case of having to re set a glued neck, or remove the the top or back of an acoustic to do internal repairs. How much glue did you use? Enough so it sqeezed out when you clamped the neck to the body? Is the neck to body fit tight, are all wood the surfaces contacting each other,no gaps?
EDIT - OK. Didn't see your build site link at first,but I just checked it out. Looks to me from the picture showing the neck in the pocket after gluing with the clamp removed that the wood surfaces are not mated well and there was not an actual wood to wood bond formed.There are gaps between the bottom and side surfaces.The neck seems to have only been held on superficially by the glue,if you catch my drift. Here's what I'm referring to.

http://www.buildmyelectricguitar.com...uitar_1579.JPG

[MistaT]

That photo was taken while I was installing the tune-omatic bridge, which is when I had the joint failure. So my guess is that this is showing the beginning stages of the neck joint failing.

To answer your questions, let me go through my gluing procedure. First of all I make sure everyghing fits very snugly. In this case, when I test fitted the guitar neck to the body, it was so snug that the guitar body would not fall off the neck when you held the guitar vertically. Additionally, in order to remove the neck from the guitar body (obviously w/o glue..) I have to forcefully smack the headstock towards the body.

Next thing I do is (without any glue..) I set up my clamping arrangement completely. This allows me to solve the typical "Oh gee, I need to clamp here, but THAT clamp is in the way" problems that always come up.

The point here is to make sure that once the glue hits the wood, I can quickly clamp the wood joint within 30 seconds. I don't know where I got this, but a long time ago I read that this is important for maximum strength of the glue joint. But then this might be one of those urban myths too. Needless to say, that is what I do anyway.

Finally a get to the place where its actually glue time. I don't have an actual photo of the glue oozing out of the joint, but you can see in the photo below a little bit of glue oozing out at the pickup opening. Also notice around the neck / body joint you can see the darker wood where it is wet. This is where I used a wet rag to wipe off the excess glue. As usual, there was a lot of excess.



To have a look at a typical wood joint of mine, here is a link to the page where I am gluing the two pieces of wood for the body together:

http://www.buildmyelectricguitar.com...gory-menu.html

The second photo shows how I typically glue edges of wood.

Oh BTW, you asked what ind of wood. This guitar is made out of mahogany, which I'm pretty sure it's not an oily wood.

Once I have done all of this gluing, I let it set for 24 hours, even though the instructions on the bottle say clamp for 30 minutes.

OK, I think I have answered your questions. Again any input would be appreciated.

-- Mike

[voodoochild]

It could have been a bad bottle of glue or a starved glue joint. One thing you never know with Titebond and such is if it was shipped in freezing conditions or how long it had been on the shelf before you bought it. I am reluctant to use it for high stress joints anymore. With hide glue, you can make it from scratch which guarantees freshness and total control. It also resists heat much better that PVA glues. Here is the best PVA glue on the planet if you want to use it....
Jowat Corporation - Jowat Adhesives - Adhesives program

[MistaT]

Thanks Voodochild for the link! I will definetly look into this.

[voodoochild]

Thanks Voodochild for the link! I will definetly look into this.

Yeah I wish I could tell you where to get it. A cabinet shop down the road from me uses it in big drums and I just bring my little empty bottle and fill it every once and a while. It's by far the best stuff I have used. I'm sure there are places who distribute it.

[David Schwab]

You might not have used enough glue and over clamped it, squeezing most of it out. I like to clamp pretty hard, but make you you get glue running out of the joint.

More often than not I use slow set epoxy for set necks.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

I'd guess that you clamped out all your glue, too. It seems like your method is great.... though that the dry joint is so tight is a bit of a clue that there might not be enough room. What does the inside of the joint look like?

I've known some people to use white elmer's glue on some joints and it works fine assuming a strong physical fit. I'm not quite that brave though.

voodoo child - I've never heard of those problems with titebond. How common is that?

[Down Time]

Sounds like bad glue. I had a failure using Titebond II. I usually only use the Original Titebond, I have never had a problem with it.

[MistaT]

Thanks guys for the input!

David, I was wondeirng abut using epoxy, or even gorilla glue.

I've never heard of over clamping glue joints, but it does make sense. OTOH when I was gluing my two pieces of mahogany together on edge for the body, I used three pipe clamps, and you can put way more pressure on the joint with pipe clamps than what I used for the neck. I don't know... I'm just thinking sorta out loud here..

Funky, I'm a bit curious about the joint being too tight. From what I read on various places on the web, a tight neck joint seemed to be the thing to do. I don't know, its all very frustrating to me.

As far as glue failing, yes, I have heard of it, esp. if the glue has frozen, and is old. Again, I read somewhere a long time a go to throw out your wood glue that is older than 6 months. But I am by no means very knowledgable on such things.

So has anyone used Gorilla glue for gluing necks? I have used it on other things, and seems like good stuff.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

Isn't gorilla glue the stuff that swells up? Or am I thinking of something else?

If a joint is waaay too tight you end up squeezing out so much glue that it ends up very weak. I've done this before regluing necks back together on Gibsons...... if I go a little too crazy with the clamps. Typically you are at least a little aware of this as you're doing it because you're putting so much pressure on. Those c-clamps you have are pretty hefty, and that was part of what made me think of it.

I haven't done much building..... really just repairs so I can't critique your neck joint, but given what I know about forcing glue out of joints in repairs, it seemed the same would apply. Maybe you should just abrade the surfaces with 80 grit prior to gluing?

I am second guessing my original opinion now. You obviously know your stuff, and mahogany is one of the easier woods to glue provided you keep it clean. I am looking forward to more information on this "bad glue" phenomenon, the only bad glue I've had is so obviously bad coming out of the bottle that I just throw it out. To me, good titebond should have a sort of elasticity to it as you're manipulating it - if that goes away, then it isn't any good. But, I'm not an adhesives expert.

[axpro]

It could have been a bad bottle of glue or a starved glue joint. One thing you never know with Titebond and such is if it was shipped in freezing conditions or how long it had been on the shelf before you bought it. I am reluctant to use it for high stress joints anymore. With hide glue, you can make it from scratch which guarantees freshness and total control. It also resists heat much better that PVA glues. Here is the best PVA glue on the planet if you want to use it....
Jowat Corporation - Jowat Adhesives - Adhesives program

I was going to ask the same questions

Starved joint is my number one thought, but bad glue is a kicker. I get mine from a local specialty cabinet maker and mark it with a date. after one year, whether i use most or almost none, it goes. and that is from a supplier who deals with speacialty cabinetmakers, so fresh glue is a MUST!

A more generic product (no offense to titebond) might sit at a distributor, then at a store warehouse, then on a shelf for a few more months before you buy it... could be YEARS old before it even hits the store!


THey should date that stuff.

[MistaT]

Oh thanks funky!

I think ur right about gorilla glue swelling up. I dunno, maybe I put too much pressure on the C-clamps, its sure a possibility though. I didn't rough up the surface of the neck joint, I never thought it was necessary. However in re-gluing this up, I did in fact hit both surfaces with 80 grit sandpaper - and that was only after I made sure all of the old glue was off.

Now I'm a bit scared that it will happen again b/c I used the same glue (what was I thinking Mike... I had even suspected bad glue, it would have been worth the couple of bucks to by new glue, from a different store... - duuhhh!!)

Axpro, good call on the date stuff on glue.. Maybe if we all started eating wood glue perhaps the FDA would step in... Hmmm.. that too is kinda scary... not the eating of the glue, but the government stepping in.

[David Schwab]

I've known some people to use white elmer's glue on some joints and it works fine assuming a strong physical fit. I'm not quite that brave though.

No! That type of glue will creep over time. You don't want to do that.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

What are you talking about? I've been eating glue for years. Great remedy for diarrhea.

Any luthiers want to verify/deny what I said before about over clamping? I'm curious for some other opinions.