It’s common to have people contact me with a broken violin neck, on closer inspection its not always broken though. The neck joint with the violin body is probably the weakest link in the violin in terms of stress and strain. In essence its a combination of woodworking joints including a thin dovetail joint, butt joint and rabbet joint all in one held together with hide glue. If the joints weren’t well made to start with its a bit weaker again. When an instrument experiences shock, through misadventure or where the violin is in a humid climate like here in Australia the joint is prone to come apart.
A neck break is where the timber itself breaks along the grain line (see Cello Repairs Brisbane for how a broken neck is repaired) for some detail on that as its very common on cellos and the same technique aplies to violins. Also at the peg box cracks can appear as this is a source of preasure from the pegs (and perhaps poorly fitted pegs that are pushed in to hard ) , I’ll write about this in due course.
So regluing the neck joint is called a neck reset rather than a broken neck repair. In the best of worlds the surfaces are cleaned and reglued. Often however additional repair might need to be made to the neck block and some times the top plate of the violin if there has been tear out/ splitting of the timbers. Oft times a timber wedge needs to be carved and inserted into the neck block.
So a neck reset and glue up in theory is quick and simple, however care must be taken that the angle of the fingerboard is going to be striaght down the instrument and the neck projection (height above the body is correct) . Sometimes the bridge must also be adjusted afterwards to get everything perfect.
In many cases the fingerboard also needs to be removed and reattached, reasonably straightforward…its just time.
You might think student instruments this is easier…however sometimes its not so, student instruments are often not put together with hide glue (or worse someone has attempted repair with hardware store glue) and so dissembly can be a bit tricky leading to some visible evidence of a repair.
Above is an example of a poorly fitted student violin neck, where glue has been used as a filler, resulting in a neck slip over time (this must be cleaned out and a wedge inserted)
