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[Torchy]

crp

[jrc4558]

Get a standard WD balnk replacement body. I think they come w/o holes, so your tiltamatic will have 2b custom drilled/spaced. Good luck.

[BILLYL]

Why not repair the body.
All you need is some good wood glue - I use Titebond and some clamps-

Get the glue into the crack and put the wood clamps on it.  Let it dry over night and refinish the body.

I have successful done this on several bodies - one was craked in half - right down the middle.

Hope that helps.

BILL

[Paul Marossy]

You could also try asking this question at the www.projectguitar.com forum. You could repair it as BILLYL suggests, but that entails having to refinish the guitar body, which it sounds like you are prepared to do. It's a lot of work to strip off the old paint and sand it down and stuff, though.
Or as suggested, you could just get a new body and drill the three holes yourself. You could even get unfinished one off of ebay, plug the 4 holes with dowels (if already drilled) and drill three new holes, apply a finish, and you're good to go...

It all depends on what you're willing to do to get it fixed.  

[Torchy]

crp

[vseriesamps]

Definitely repair it, as above. Fix it right and the split'll be stronger than the rest.

I have almost the exact same guitar and it plays circles around most everything else I own. Keep it as orig as possible.

IMHO
-k

[Paul Marossy]

I would probably be inclined to fix it, too. I think you would want to glue it and clamp it first, then attack refinishing it. Some people feel that their guitar never sounds quite the same after refinishing it. I don't have any personal experience with that, though. Actually, in this case, I would be more worried about how a glued up crack would affect the tone of the guitar. Ultimately, probably not very much...  

[GreenEye]

Warmoth will build any body or neck to whatever specs you have:

http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/guitars.cfm

Might be costly though...

[Ge_Whiz]

Repair it, and maybe don't worry too much about the finish afterwards - after all, it's supposed to look 21 years old. Otherwise, if you replace the body, you'll be half-way to a 'George Washington' axe...

[Torchy]

crp

[moritz]

Yeah, i think fixing it is the definately right way to go... besides, any sign of the crack which may remain will add to the 'character' of the guitar.

I'd love to see pics once it's done (i love aged/beat-up ol' guitars)  

[petemoore]

Now might be a good time  to add shielding to the insides ! It IS possible to have something be better overall as a result of breaking.
 Do a decent job, get the glue wayy in there...you should have no worries.
 A guitar string does a fine job pushing glue down a crack.
 Another thing I've done is thin the wood glue slightly, with distilled or tap water, 6 to 1 mixture or thereabouts, and pour it in the crack...alot, and let it drip and drain into the entire body, then follow with pure wood glue, letting the dripping process take it's time and basically soak every surface 'inside'. This gets the bonding agents all the way into the grains,  and you've got glue like everywhere, wiping off alot of glue, with a wet rag after clamping. Sometimes the thick stuff won't go 'around in there, thinning it doesn't seem to affect the strength...especially if you're not thinning it much and then follow with pure glue. The water just acts as a spreading helper, the glue dries fully and perfectly well.

[Johnny Guitar]

I agree with those that say you should try to glue it. One caveat however; make sure that there are no missing pieces of wood (chips or chunks) from the crack.

If there are (noticible) missing pieces, you would need to make pieces to fit inside to fill those spaces for the glue to join (probably also modifying the inside of the crack). In that instance it would probably be better to have a guitar repair person do it.

Assuming it does all fit together and no pieces are missing you could easily do it yourself as others suggested. The only thing you might want to make sure before you get started is that you CAN clamp it together. The rounded bouts might make it difficult to get clamps on. Just make a few custom pieces of wood as jaws to hold the body in.

You might want to get a book about guitar repair if you don't have one. I really like the Guitar Player repair book from Dan Erliwine (sp?).

John

[Paul Marossy]

I believe that it's Dan Erlewine.  :wink:
You'll need to figure out some sort of clamping jig to make a good, tight joint. That's really the hardest part about it.

[Torchy]

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[Paul Marossy]

Cool. Hope everything works out well for you.  

[Regan]

I have played on a couple of those strats and they are amazingly good, better than most of the U.S. ones from that time.
I'm still kicking myself a couple of years ago a guy had a mint early bullet that just screamed play me and was real cheap, so we made the deal, he was to hold the guitar for me and I would meet him later on.
I lost his number.  :?
Regan