Cracks near the headstock or just finish cracks?

[bronz79]

I own this RR1 from 2007..never dropped or banged against anything.
On artificial light the cracks are nearly impossible to view..but directly under sunlight today OMG.
Is an hard tell..clear gloss finish cracked or cracks from the inside?

[Twitch]

Im no expert but those look like clear coat cracks. Theyre so small that I would think it odd that the wood would crack that small, unless there is an unvisible crack in the wood underneath the paint as well that has expanded enough to crack the clear coat, but I would think if that were the case it would have cracked the blue paint as well and to me the blue looks fine.

[RobRR]

Theyre finish cracks... Ive got a Model 6 and a Rhoads with the same things and absolutley no damage to the headstock. Its nothing to worry about.

[MetalDaze]

Wood cracks will usually follow the grain. I agree that it is a crack in the finish, most likely caused by the wood expanding/shrinking with temperature/humidity changes.

[Learn Guitars]

Unfortunately, wood does not expand that much. Humidity would not effect it to the point that causes that kind of fracture. At least I have yet to see that in my 20 years of finishing. It would half to increase considerably in size to create fractures in the finish. I hate to say it, but that neck has seen some kind of impact at some time. You may have handles the guitar carefully, but that kind of fracture is caused by the head stock being stress from back towards the front. It wont affect your playing or the structure of the guitar. Most wood has a certain flex point before it structurally snaps. But, the polyester on the other hand has a very low stress tolerance.

[Hellbat]

Looking at the pics to me it looks like the floyd nut smacked into something hard.

[Twitch]

I kinda noticed the cracks seem to start at the corner of the nut where maybe too much force was applied to the nut during assembly. Or, the clear coat may not have been prepared correctly and is more brittle than it should be??

[bronz79]

First of all,thanks to all!
So..now..what is the best way to move on?
Take my axe to a luthier that open the cracks and try to restore?

[ralph]

First of all,thanks to all!
So..now..what is the best way to move on?
Take my axe to a luthier that open the cracks and try to restore?

I dont think that it looks that bad, Id just leave it and keep playing,

the reason I say this is that Murphy's Law states that an hour after you get it back from being refinished (or repair it yourself) it will somehow get scratched, and that would be most frustrating

[sully]

In looking at the second pic, there's definitely been some impact of some sort in that guitar's life. Coulda happened in shipping. That said, it's a finish crack, leave it.

Sully

[javert]

I experienced similar damage to a USA Jackson I ordered last year. As far as I know, the damage happened during shipping, and UPS accepted the responsibility and refunded the seller.

[javert]

I just recalled that I took at picture of the damage before filing the claim with UPS. Here's what it looked like: