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I have one in my shop. Peghead snapped off at nut. Not repairable. Manufacturer is no help. Took cone off and looked inside. Fingerboard extension held down with five screws. Those are out. But the heel is held tight. Not obvious to me how. There is a center beam of wood that runs length of top. Two screws held that to cone hole. Does not connect to tail block. Does appear to connect to heel somehow. There are two "feet" that attach bar to back (epoxy?).

Question: Anyone know the next step?

The next step is RUN AWAY.

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

Those feet under the wooden bar are usually just sitting in there under pressure without any kind of glue--of course, this one could be different. Typically to pull the neck on a metal bodied reso, you have to drill out the inlays covering the screws on the fingerboard extension, remove those screws, remove the screws going through the soundwell into the wooden bar and remove the tailpiece. It could still be tight at that point, but it should give. Removing that little piece of plywood that the soundwell screw goes through would probably do it.

Dave

Mike wrote:
"Question: Anyone know the next step?"

You might consider grafting a new peghead on without pulling the neck. It can be a PITA but may be less problematic than pulling the neck. Mario Kessels did an interesting head stock repair on the MIMF (https://www.mimf.com//phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5810 ) and there are several others to be found there in the repair section. Seeing the way others have done it and their results can be informative and inspirational.
Repair work is where having a work holding and positioning tool like Don Parker recently showed comes into its own, but for this repair a leg vise should suffice.

Just FYI, this thread shows what Clay referenced:

viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=55545

reso steinberger time

I gotta quit reading at 3AM here and commenting when I've been up too long...

If the peghead is broken off - post pictures of THAT. Most peghead breaks ARE repairable. Some are just more difficult than others. Treat it like a Martin, and don't worry about pulling the neck.

Trust me - resonator guitars are the weirdest stringed beasties since who flung the chunk. You don't wanna open them up unless you know all the arcane ways it's supposed to be held together. The Dopyera Brothers were literally auto body shop guys who decided to build guitars, but only after looking at a banjo. The neck attach method they came up with makes very little rhyme or reason.

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

But they sure sound right for picking blues...

Most helpful. Thank you. I do think the feet are glued. Gonna work on it today. Thanks!

Not long after posting, I removed the screws on the extension. Still stuck good

Well, as it turned out, Dave was correct. The feet are glued down, but the center beam was just resting on it (with a lot of downward pressure). Applied more sideways force and it just slid off. Center beam is attached to neck with dowels. just cut that off. Now to get a neck fabbed and its time for frets and finish. This will end up being way easier than scabbing on a peghead (actually, that really was not possible). And end product way better. THANKS DAVE!!

On the old Nationals I've worked on, the feet have never been fastened to the back and frequently the dowel posts haven't been attached to the feet either except via friction/pressure fit. Kinda like a soundpost in a fiddle. The sticks have always been mortised into the necks with a diagonal cut on the bottom of the stick as it goes into the neck--You're lucky with the dowels!

For anyone interested in new metal bodied reso construction, there's a guy on YouTube "Ninety Two Guitars" who has done an interesting series on building one. https://www.youtube.com/@Ninety2guits/videos. His videos are refreshing in that he shows not only what worked, but what didn't work as well. And the guy seems to be fearless, and making up his own way of doing things. Some of his techniques seem to match up with the originals, but a lot don't. Anyway, I've enjoyed his resonator guitar series.

Dave

Until I see detailed photos of the neck and peghead, I will say your assessment is untrue. Difficult? Probably. Impossible? I doubt it.

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

Pieces missing, no where to put a dowel (truss through peghead). Maybe u can fix. I'll not put my name on that.

However this broke, nobody bothered to collect the shards. Chris, standing by for advice how to repair.

Holy crap, that's an ugly break, Mike. Would you send me the stuff that's left to fix? I'd even pay for the shipping. It will take me awhile to get to it, but I'd take pictures and everything for the enjoyment of the OLF.

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

Chris, when I am done, I will send it to you. I have no desire to attempt this.

The reality is, this repair was rejected by two reputable shops. Primary reason being the cost of the guitar versus the cost of the repair and the risk of it failing in the future. I can't get inside your head, but I suspect as a business decision in your shop, you too would have rejected the job. I agreed to take it when the owner agreed to a neck replace. And even so, it makes no financial sense for me to do it as I will make very little. So I am doing it for other reasons.

So I presume you are offering to do this (albeit over an extended period of time) to prove it can be done. And to teach folks a technique. I can get behind that. Your first reaction "run away!" was a good one.

^^^ He gets me! ^^^

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

Lol… can’t wait to see this!


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Me too.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"