Baby Taylor repair

scalino65

Hi, I will post some pics later but I can probably describe the problem well enough. Due to the antics of a small boy, the top of my baby taylor has separated from the sides at the rear of the guitar.
The detachment of the top extends back to the sound hole.
Whilst it now means that I have the most amazing acoustic whammy bar/top, its not what I'm really after!
I have tried glueing and clamping the top back on but it hasnt worked. So my question, I suppose is twofold, is there some super dooper glue that I should try (I hear a product called Tiger Seal is very good), or is there some sort of trapeze style tail piece that I could clamp on that would hold it all together. The other problem is that the top has a split in it too, but I'll worry about that later!
It was a nice little thing and deserves better than becoming firewood! Maybe I'll try and save it and paint it sonic blue or some other fiat 500 colour:)
Many thanks

ICBM

Ouch... that sounds nasty.

Honest advice: take it to a luthier and at least ask for an assessment. The difficulty is that now you've glued it with something that hasn't held (what type of glue was it?) it may be much more difficult to get the right glue to take.

Gluing a top to a rim without the right type of clamps or other methods (eg binding elastic) and getting the edge to line up correctly isn't easy, and it may need the split in the top glued *before* you try to fit it back to the body.

The problem is that doing it yourself is likely to not work and could make things worse, but for a pro to do it may be approaching the value of the guitar.

WezV

Yeah, type of glue used is going to be the big risk here.  We need to know what you used

step away from the Tiger Seal

You can rig up various clamping methods.  proper spool clamps are the easiest clamp to make, but rope or inner tube can work for this.

things need to line up properly first and the join needs to be as clean as possible

Corvus

You say something's not right up to the sound hole, perhaps internal braces have come away as well. Those can be fixed as well.

Probably well to take it to somewhere like LA Guitars in Finchley, they know their way round acoustics very well.

scalino65

Thanks chaps. To be honest, it simplt isnt worth paying someone else to even take a look. It cost me about 100 quid new I think a few years back. I must post a pic on here but I think the only course is to bodge it and "make a feature" of the repair! If you remember those old tennis raquet frame clamp things that you kept a wooden raquest in - might make up something like that!

WezV

scalino65 said:

 If you remember those old tennis raquet frame clamp things that you kept a wooden raquest in - might make up something like that!

I am fairly sure there is no need for anything like that.  post some pics and we can advise