Al's Guitar Workshop

Carbon fiber overlay with epoxy

Carbon fiber overlay repair in progress.

Thank you for your interest in the headstock carbon fiber overlay repair with epoxy. This repair is state of the art, using a technique that is new and exciting.

Joe Glaser and Scott Holyfield work together in Joe's shop in Nashville and have been doing this repair on thousands of guitars over the past few years. Joe is a pioneer in the field of luthiery and is a nationally recognized expert who gives lectures and teaches and trains luthiers on his methods. I attended one of the trainings Joe and Scott did together. In addition, I consult with several other nationally known luthiers to continually improve and refine my approach to this and other repairs.

Carbon fiber is an extremely durable and useful material — there are guitars made entirely from carbon fiber, in fact. The headstock repair using a carbon fiber overlay employs a mesh fabric of carbon fiber which is combined with epoxy to form an extremely strong reinforcement to any headstock repair. Epoxy is used because of its strength and because it fills gaps very well, which is important in headstock repairs that tend to splinter and lose wood as part of the break.

The repair starts with the removal of approximately up to .06" of the top layer of wood on the back of the headstock. The mesh is attached to the back of the neck and headstock using epoxy, then epoxy is painted on top of the mesh once the mesh epoxy is cured. It is important to understand that as part of this repair, the top portion of the repaired area will no longer be wood. That area will be a layer of the mesh/epoxy which adheres to the wood and hardens to a much more rigid form that is much stronger and more durable than wood. Additional epoxy layers are applied until the area is even with the guitar neck. At that point the repaired area is sanded to a very smooth texture and sealed for refinishing.

Wood grain is difficult to replicate, but I use various techniques to mimic the original wood grain and finish as closely as possible. It is important to understand that the end result of the repair will be a guitar headstock that will be structurally much stronger than prior to the break, but visually will not be a perfect match to the original finish.

Joe and Scott report that of the thousands of carbon fiber backstrap repairs they have done, none have come back with breaks that have occurred in the repaired areas. Many of their customers are on tour constantly, and it is not uncommon for headstocks to break multiple times in different areas.

I am excited to be able to provide this repair in my shop.

A full repair, start to finish