Just bought my first ever acoustic guitar (a Taylor Big Baby) used on a local craiglist-equivalent for about 130$. It came in the original gigback which had only one back strap left. I decided to bike home and strap the guitar crosswise on my back.. in hindsight I should have realised that the one strap could not be trusted. Anyway I biked for about 3m before the strao broke off completely and the guitar fell on the asphalt. Upon arriving home I found the damage you can see in the picture :( The tuning peg of the G string was very crooked, I pressed it back in shape and for the moment it seems relatively stable..
What do you think I should do? try to glue the piece together myself? get it done professionally? try to get a replacement headstock? thanks for any advice and condolences!
I’d remove the machine head/tuners on the bad side too. There will probably be a nut on the other side that you can undo and the tuners will just pull through. That will give you more working room and allow you to get the glue along the whole crack.
I’m less sure about this one but you could, very carefully slide something like a knife to open the crack out a little. The is might allow the glue to flow in better. If your glue is runny, it might not make that much of an improvement, so perhaps not worth risking cracking it off completely. (Although the glue will be plenty strong enough, if you take off the broken part it might not be easy to line it back up properly. If it’s still attached, you’ll be right.)
FWIW I once cycled 3 miles home with a new guitar too. It was in a heavy flight case and I thought it would be fine to carry it under one arm and wobble back one handed.