I came across an unusual failure of a short tail section of hitchpin rail in a 1970s Neupert, a short 8 x 4. The rail seems to be beech, and had pulled away from the soundboard and tail, warping enough that the pins were pulled past vertical. Symptom: a couple strings came off their pins while tuning.
On removal of the rail section, it seemed not to have been glued - so sign of glue residue, no transfer of splinters. Rather, it seemed to have relied on wedging between the spine and the longer hitch pin rail together with two 1/4" dowels inserted vertically, apparently without glue.
I replaced the rail section, gluing and clamping to both board and tail and reinforcing with three glued 3/8" dowels. Not a lot of trouble, just some finicky cutting and fitting. This same instrument had had a pulled away 4' hitch rail segment at the high treble six years earlier (which I glued back and screwed to the lower rail beneath the soundboard).
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Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm@unm.eduhttp://fredsturm.nethttp://www.artoftuning.com"We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Casteneda
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