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Here is the latest Luthier Tips du Jour video. - In this video I offer a tip for using tuning machines to do a crack repair.
This video as well as all my other videos are available via my website, http://www.obrienguitars.com/videos , LMI's website or on youtube.
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I don't know where I learned that trick either, it's been many years, but that's more or less the way I do it too. Except instead of using a block on the inside I make a cleat and glue that in at the same time that I glue the crack shut. So then it is cleated and glued shut at the same time.

I can't remember if I learned that trick from Don Teeter or Dan Erlewine, but the tool I made is old - from some oak I had laying around, and a cheapo tuner from some nameless electric. Works like a champ. Rob went fancy with nylon blocks and gold Grovers..... Bet mine works just as well.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Yup I made mine out of wood too with some cheapo tuners.

That is an old technique -originally done using friction pegs so it might be hard to credit the person who came up with the idea.

That technique became widely known from Don Teeter’s book (published in 1975), The Acoustic Guitar - adjustment, care, maintenance and repair. A classic book, and still in print. I am looking at it now and on page 53 Teeter credits the idea to a friend named Bill Cheatwood, who first showed him the technique of using a tuning machine and guitar string for clamping a crack in a lute. Did Mr Cheatwood invent it, or was it passed to him from some other luthier of the past? It would be nice to know. Anyway - neat trick, and thanks for the nice demonstration Robbie.

In other words, it's a classic technique proven through the decades.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince