My son saved up and bought himself a Jackson Flying V (he’s into his thrash metal and it was his money!) just after christams. Unfortunately the body has broken. I have been in email converstaion with where I bought it and they (not totally suprisingley) are claiming that it must have been dropped or otherwise mistreated to cause the damage. I have sent them lots of photos. As far as I know it hasn’t been mistreated.

The thing is – if you look at the way it has failed – the split is exactly along the join of two of the bits of wood that made up the body. You can see the tongues & grooves (if thats what they are called) haven’t been damaged at all. I would expect – if it had been glued correctly, for there to be some damage to the wood. Since it has failed along the join, to me it looks like it wasn’t glued correctly. Isn’t wood glue as strong as the wood itself?

Anyway, they are now offering to have a look at it but I have to pay for the delivery back to them. Given I suspect that they may stand their ground and I will therefore have to pay for the return postage as well (to get the guitar back), I’m not sure if it’s going to be best to just glue it back together myself (any tips for this other than use wood glue?).

If it makes any difference – I ordered it over the internet but actually picked it up in person.

Having broken the odd guitar over the years, tbh that does look reminiscent of a guitar that’s had an impact of some sort.

Blimey that doesn’t look good; a joint like that should have been stronger than the wood even if a DIY glue like PVA was used.

It shouldn’t break like that. The wood should splinter if the join is glued correctly.

You could glue it dead easily provided you can deal with the old glue.

Is there any damage elsewhere on the guitar? Any impact that was big enough to break that joint (if it were well made) would leave witness marks. And not little ones either, it’d look like it’d been hit with hammers. And pointy guitars tend to pick up damage fast if handled roughly. Basically, unless it looks beaten up I’d expect you to get a replacement, any claim that it’s accident damage doesn’t stand up without marks to evidence it.

I reckon if you could open up that joint you’d find almost no glue in it. It’d be an easy repair if it all unzips cleanly, but it’s also fairly likely that there’ll be some bits that actually adhered well and which will have splintered a bit as it broke. And of course, regluing it will still leave the finish broken.

Hmmm… looks like someone forgot to put some decent glue in that joint dunnit.

I can’t comment on your sons ability to handle an instrument, but that is fixable and fairly easy to fix at that.

If you are looking into a warranty, best be wary of the to-fro of claim/counter claim.

If I were you, I’d get it fixed and thrash it.

I don’t think the vendor will help you because if it had been given a hit the split would look just like that.
It should be quite easy to make a permanent repair with the right glue. Titebond, Cascamite Evo-stik Resin W and some clamps will sort it.

Blimey that doesn’t look good; a joint like that should have been stronger than the wood even if a DIY glue like PVA was used.

Yep.  The glue in the joint is usually the last thing to go 🙂

Titebond, Cascamite Evo-stik Resin W and some clamps will sort it.

Even just PVA there and clamps would do it I wouldn’t have thought.  It isn’t under any real stress there I would have thought?

but, if there aren’t any obvious marks where is has been dropped I can’t imagine you would have problems sending it back

Thanks for the responses – that seems to confirm what I thought, that there must be sod all glue in there!

It’s annoying, but I think its probably least hassle if I just fix it myself.

You’ll be able to glue it together easily enough but you won’t be able to sort the finish without a heck of a lot more work.

That’s got to be poor gluing, i treat my guitars like shite, they fall over all the time, my poor mexi strat takes a beating! 😆 still works perfectly!

It would take an incredible amount of force to snap the body of a well made guitar.

IMO, that’s definitely a manufacturing error.

Pretty sure wood glue is meant to be stronger than the wood itself. So should defo be shattered as opposed to the glue just comming apart.

All fine and well saying you can fix it, it will be easy enough to re glue, and won’t affect the functionality/sound of guitar, but that doesn’t solve the body work issues that are a whole different ball game to get back to the original.

Have you tried approaching Jackson directly of it was brand new?

I’m guessing they are machine made and it ran low/out of glue un noticed and slipped through the production?