40 year old wood separating, what do?

[Blomberg]

Stripped Musicmaster body starting to come apart at the seams.

There doesn't appear to be any finish other than the stain-job, but I could be wrong. Certainly no lacquer.
Might have been oiled once upon a time, I suppose.







How do I best go about mending these cracks? Just fill them up with wood glue? Or some brown wood filler?
I'd like to preserve the natural finish, it has some nice patina/mojo to it, so I'm not going to just fill it and paint over it.

But it's obviously pretty dry from being without finish for however many years.
If I oil it up (regular oil, not hardening/Tru oil), logic tells me it'll swell up a bit with the moisture and maybe lessen the width of the cracks?
But then it'll be oily and harder to glue/fill?
Halp!

[Danley]

Following - I have a Mustang body with similar (less severe) separations and have been recommended to leave it as-is since it’s stable. But it bugs.

Seems not uncommon for ‘Student’ models.

[Blomberg]

Following - I have a Mustang body with similar (less severe) separations and have been recommended to leave it as-is since it’s stable. But it bugs.

Seems not uncommon for ‘Student’ models.

Well, if it's just cosmetic, I'll probably fill it with some brown dyed filler. The body has a few screw holes from a Bigsby I'll need to fill anyway.
My worry is that it's an ongoing problem that'll get worse with time, but I'm not sure how to check for that?

[andy_tchp]

Leave it as is, and definitely don't apply any kind of 'oil'.

If it gets worse (it won't ) you can look at wicking in some wood glue and finding a way of applying clamping pressure with, well, clamps.

[fuzzking]

ahhh jessas, this forum ain't what it used to be.

1.) get wood glue,

2.) fill the gap with wood glue

3.) clamp that shit and let it dry.

[Blomberg]

ahhh jessas, this forum ain't what it used to be.
3.) clamp that shit and let it dry.

There's nothing to really clamp, though.
The seam seems good along 97% of the length, but the end wood has shrunk, leaving a gap.

I ended up just filling it with some brown putty, and I'll get some finish on the body eventually.

[HNB]

I had that with a mustang. I taped it off to keep the wood glue from dripping out and filled it up with wood glue. Worked fine.

20190309_104420 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

[jvin248]

.

In similar cracks I have used 'Thin' CA adhesive -- which I have seen wick up a crack twelve inches. Then clamp and let sit overnight, I don't use an accelerator.

Wood glue, even when thinned, does not wick that far. If you break the crack you'll find penetration is very shallow.

.

[antisymmetric]

^^^Another CA vote here, I've even used it an old neck that was beginning to separate along its centre joint. Masked everything off and used a pipette to get the thin CA in. It worked well, the neck has since been lacquered and strung up, and you'd never know there'd been an issue.