Broken tailpieces

[snakehips]

Hi there !

Last November, one of my vintge National guitars suffered a broken tailpiece.
It was actually a modern National Resophonic nickel-plated brass tailpiece, bought for a vintage National, back in 2008. So, it lasted about 7 years before it broke.
I emailed Jason Workman at National Resophonic - and they were actually really cool about it, as they ALWAYS are, and sent me a replacement tailpiece free of charge, under Warranty. Well, that tailpiece is still absolutely fine !

I opened up a guitar case today to play my 1932 National Style N - to find the tailpiece on that one had broken - at the usual right-angle bend.
This time, it was the guitar's original nickel-plated brass National tailpiece.

What am I doing wrong ???

My guitars tend to be in my garage, in their cases. However, they do get turns in the house and they do get taken out to gigs and jam sessions - including this one.
My garage isn't cold as such - and the weather hasn't got cold yet. I don't kick and throw my guitars around either.
I think I'll have to stop leaving them in my garage.
My garage is one of those "integral" types, as part of the house AND the central heating boiler is also in the garage, on the opposite wall - so the garage never goes below zero in the winter, especially as I have good seals around the garage doors.

Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what is going on before the tailpieces on all of my guitars snap ???? !!!

PS. Does anyone know of a good source of authentic-looking nickel-plated tailpieces (definitely NOT chrome-plated) ? Steel or brass would be fine.
I'm less keen on the National Resophonic ones as the shape is not nearly close enough to vintage National ones.

Many thanks, in advance !

[bonzo]

Hi sh, gotta be thinking metal fatigue. The original shaping of the tailpiece would weaken the metal, pressure from the strings plus vibration from playing and expansion and contraction from temperature changes all take their toll. Keeping the guitars at a stable temperature can only help,even to the point of wrapping a blanket round them when out gigging!
Food for thought. Liked your young discovery by the way, keep this up and we'll be calling you the Scottish Simon Cowell! Best wishes, John

[rbe]

Hey Snakehips,
I have had several originals repaired by NRP. They have always done a very nice job. It gets re-nickel plated after the repair and looks good. I have found it happens on Dobro tailpieces more than National's, but it is just fatigue. Figure, most of your guitars were cared for by someone else for the first 50 or so years. No telling what kind of stresses they were subject to, even though they don't show it. I recall it isn't cheap, but the tailpiece is original and looks right. I have yet to find a tailpiece that looks like the originals, but isn't made of the wrong material.They tend to be thinner looking too.
Contact Jason.

[snakehips]

Many thanks for your practical advice. Yes, you are right - I have no idea how it might have been treated in the last 80 odd years since before I got it !

I might look close to home though for a repair, as otherwise, the repair costs plus shipping each way might be more expensive than a new NRP one (as I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK !

All the best !

[rbe]

It will be more than a new one. I think the last time I had it done, It was about $80 USD. But unfortunately there aren't any replacements out there like the originals.

[snakehips]

I'm wondering if laser-welding is the best approach - it fuses like-metals together, instead of a solder between.
Plus, I think it will have less effect on nearby metal - and thus the nickel-plating.
I'm gonna send a few emails out to companies with laser-welding equipment.
I can send them my broken NRP tailpiece as well, to try/practice before having a go on the vintage National tailpiece.

In the meantime, experimenting with a spare NRP tailpiece I have, I find they don't fit vintage Nationals very well - those at least with one-piece top&sides, where there is a large curve at the edge.NRP guitars have a more abrupt 90 degree angle.
I have fitted the NRP tailpiece to my Style N in the meantime - but I had to elongate the tailpiece's strap-button hole, towards the pointy bit, so that the tailpiece would sit mich more passively - if you understand what I mean. The NRP tailpiece strap button hole and the guitar body's strap button hole don't line up very well.

[snakehips]

Hi again !

Just had a very interesting chat with a chap who's company have been doing laser welding for 15yrs (amongst other things) - and he is quite interested to have a go at repairing my broken tailpieces.

Laser-welding definitely seems to be the way to go - as the heat involved is concentrated in a VERY small area - so it shouldn't affect the nickel-plating other than in the area being repaired. I also chatted to him about National guitar bodies - where solder seams have come apart. Similarly, they could be repaired (theoretically, at least) - and wouldn't even likely damage painted finishes.
WAY better than silver soldering or TIG welding / brazing etc.

So I'm going to send my broken tailpieces to him (I've one from a 1930 Style O, and a 7yr old NRP tailpiece) - and see what they can do.

Anyone else out there with broken tailpieces want to give this a go too ?

Will keep you posted !

[Deleted]

Interesting (and disappointing) to hear that a modern tailpiece also broke, considering the short time in use. I found two vintage tailpieces that failed in the cases a year or so ago. Have not yet had them repaired so would be interested in your results.

[snakehips]

Hi again !

That's the one and only time I heard of a NRP tailpiece breaking.
I think Jason at NRP told me they had a small batch that had problems - and he thought mine was made about the time they had the problems (now 7 yrs ago, roughly) - which is why, even after all that time, NRP were very quick deciding to send me a new replacement, completely free-of-charge. Good guys !!!

The guys I'm sending my tailpieces want to know the shape of the guitar body that it will sit on - so I'm going to send a model of the tailpiece area (guitar side, top and coverplate) by taking a mould and casting a plaster model of it - a perfect 3D copy - so they can see where the strap button hole is, right up to the end of the tailpiece, on the coverplate.
From that point they will have a die/replica to use, should they ever have more customers with broken tailpieces to repair !

[Michael Messer]

New tailpieces do occasionally break. I have seen it happen on one or two NRP guitars, this was 15 years ago. I have had it happen to two MM guitars (that I know of) over an 8 year period. It doesn't happen very often and there is very little, if any, difference between Shanghai-made tailpieces and USA NRP-made tailpieces. Occasionally the metal is weakened when the right angle bend is done.

Shine On
Michael

[Pickers Ditch]

The indispensable modern version of my sheet metal worker apprenticeship "handbook":

www.qualitytool.com/resources/Design-Handbook-Rev3.pdf

Note the section on bend radii and holes..... Laser welding wasn't around in my time....

The bit that was beaten into me was "Don't use a sharp former boy or else the bend will fracture in time!"

(.... this beating was done with a 12" ruler on the back of my neck, slapping in time with the spoken words )

[bonzo]

As Michael has said the forming of the tailpiece can stress the metal.
Another thought SH,have you got an engineering college or similar close by? The students might be interested in making a new tailpiece to your specs as part of their course. Outside the box I know, but might be worth a look! A college close to where l once lived would do work on cars to a very high standard, under supervision of course.
Best wishes, John

[bonzo]

Hi PD, is that what gave you your inate sense of timing and rythm! And you thought school was a waste of time!
Best, John

[lexluthier]

Hi Snakehips!
Sorry to hear about your tailpiece woes, must have been a heart sinking moment when you open that case!
As others have said, there's alot of stress put into the metal at that bend when it is formed and it's highly unlikey that ANY tailpiece wouldn't have micro fractures in them at that point, just not enough to fail, at least for many years in most cases.
Just out of interest, the hotter the metal is when the tailpiece is when stamped out, the fewer the micro fractures, the lesser the failiures in the long run.

Pete made an intresting comment on a thread about guitar storage recently where he said(as a rule of thumb) guitars shouldn't be stored anywhere where you wouldn't sleep and I think that's great advice. I'm not going to say that was the cause of your problem but any broad swings of temperature are perhaps going to add another stess to an already highly stressed point. Temperature changes, movement/vibration and sharp angles are the three main causes for metal failiure, check out the history and evolution of airplane windows, the British made 'Comet' being a great example.

The laser welding attempt sounds intresting and I hope it works for you. I would just say, and I'm really not just trying to be negative, be prepared for it not to work or for it not be an ideal fix at least. I suspect your guy is asking for details about the guitar body shape because he is looking to inclued a fillet to the weld on the inside angle in order to get enough strength. That would mean the tailpiece would have to be higher up IE not flat to the body.
Also the nickel plating would have to be remove in the area near to the join in order for it not to pollute the weld. So its not going to look too pretty unless you get it replated.

As far as the suggested fix to open seams on bodies goes, I am going to be very negative about that, so brace youself!
I can't see how you can clean up the failed seam of the solder joint enough to not pollute the weld. It's far easier to apply a flux to the opened seam, heat and re-fuse the existing solder already on the two mating surfaces (add new solder if needed)
The tricky part of the proceedure is the heating, using just enough to do the job and keeping it localized enough to not melt the solder further along or nearby, therein lies the skill!

The second point I would like to make also concerns heat. The reason Reso' bodies are soldered is because brazing or welding involves too much heat and the bodies distort as they cool down, otherwise it would be a much better way of going about the job.
It would be interesting to find out wether laser welding would be a better way of making a body from scratch? I just don't think from what I know about metal working it's going to be right for repairing. I would mend it how it was made.
Fingers crossed for you vis the tailpiece anyway!

Chris

[snakehips]

Hi again !

Actually, I was thinking that laser-welding a new body together INSTEAD of welding, would make the guitar just about indestructable !

Laser welding creates very high temperatures enough to MELT the surface of the metal BUT only in a tiny, tiny area - so it shouldn't really affect closeby areas and all. If there are gaps that need filled, they can laser weld matching metal (in this case, brass) nto the gap. The various bits of metal fuse together as they all melt into each other. So the join does not have a different material (like solder) in the middle of the join. It's a much stronger strongerond.
Yes, I am aware. There will be some brass showing BUT I don't think I'll lose much nickel plating with the laser welding process BUT mght lose some on the smoothing and polishing afterwards. However, I've been told there will not be much mess (excess metal etc) to grind out and polish anyway.
I know a good plater company if it needs replated.

Thought I'd give it a go as the alternative repair methods are not as strong AND will be a more ugly repair.
The guy seemed very interested in these guitars and viewed it as something fool they could do and show on their website, to show a great example of the weird and wonderful stuff they do. Here's hoping it turns out well !
Will report back.