How To Repair The Bridge On A Guitar

Acoustic guitars can be designed to sound good, or can exist designed to final – it can't really be both. Most builders try to find a middle footing, and many are very successful at finding a perfect balance. However, guitars are mostly made of wood, and sometimes wood just won't cooperate. Occasionally we see this kind of problem: an acoustic span coming off. This item guitar was rather problematic, and we were told that several other luthiers didn't want to fifty-fifty attempt to gear up it. Merely we're the type of people that just can't say no to a challenge, and so here we get!

Here's some preliminary shots of what this guitar looked similar when it came in. This was probably the worst case of an acoustic span lifting we've ever seen: the span was coming off, the top had severely warped, and the bridge plate underneath the height was cracked and misshapen. Oof!

Someone had previously attempted to fix this, and did a rather poor job of it. They had glued the bridge back down without properly addressing the root effect of the peak deflecting, and to brand matters worse they bolted the bridge down!

Here'due south the bridge plate on the inside of the guitar. It is severely croaky and warped.

Whenever nosotros're dealing with a poorly done repair, it merely makes the repair all the more than difficult. While we certainly don't try to discourage people from attempting to repair things on their own, just bear in mind that yous might screw it up and make things worse! This ane was going to be a doozy.

The first thing I needed to exercise was to remove the bridge, which was made somewhat difficult with the bolts that had been installed. The bolt heads were hidden nether some pearl dots, and I didn't want to adventure drilling the inlays out lest I strip out the commodities heads and put myself in a heap of trouble getting them out. And then instead, after removing the nuts from the within of the guitar, I put my soldering iron within against the bolts, which would melt the glue property the dots in identify. Once the glue melted, I was able to button the bolts up from the inside.

With the bolts removed, I heated the bridge with a heat lamp to melt the little bit of glue still holding the bridge on, and lifted it off the top with a knife. It came off pretty make clean, all things considered:

You lot can see how badly the top was warped and cracked under the bridge. Yikes!

Believe it or not, removing the bridge was the like shooting fish in a barrel role. Next, I had to remove the broken bridge plate inside. I fashioned a style to introduce heat to the within of the guitar, softening the glue property bridge plate to the top, and and then spent the better part of an hour with a short chisel prying it off. It came off in pieces, and it wasn't surprising when it took some of the height with it. I said this was going to be a doozy!

The span plate came off in five pieces! I've placed them together to become a rough outline of the shape.

Holy smokes! The tiptop was and then cracked and delicate that it complanate as I was removing the bridge plate. What fun.

Since the elevation was so compromised, some of it came off with the bridge plate. I had five pocket-sized pieces of spruce that I salvaged from the mess, and very meticulously glued them all back together, like so:

Adjacent I pressed the top back apartment, utilizing heat, some Thompson cauls, and a plank of oak. After a couple of treatment sessions, the pinnacle was in much better shape.

While I was at it, I repaired a few braces that had croaky and/or separated from the pinnacle:

With the top in decent shape and all the loose braces taken care of, it was time to put a bridge plate in place. I fabricated a general outline of the shape from the broken pieces I had, and fabricated a new plate out of rosewood. Then I made a caul out of plywood of the same shape for the clamps to attach to. This was a adequately large piece to glue, and I didn't want to take any chances with whatever part of it not getting fully glued to the superlative – so I may have gone a little overboard with my clamping situation:

Next I shaped the bridge to fit the new shape of the top. This is a slow process of attaching some sandpaper over the acme, sanding the bridge a chip, remove the sandpaper, check for fit, echo… repeat…repeat… This is really important, because if the bridge isn't making total contact with the top it could open the door for it to pull off over again, and own't nobody got time for that. In one case satisfied, I glued it down, drilled string holes into the new bridge plate, and reinstalled bolts and inlays (the bolts weren't entirely necessary anymore, but since there was already holes in the bridge, might likewise use them).

Lastly, I opted to install a JLD Bridge Medico, which would reinforce the top past deflecting some of the tension of the strings from the superlative to the tail block. We usually just employ these when admittedly necessary (as was this example), but they absolutely work. Since the top of this guitar was so severely compromised and the owner uses heavy gauge strings, I felt information technology was amend safe than sorry.

The final exam was to string it upwards and encounter if it didn't completely explode on me. I'thou happy to say that information technology'south holding together nicely. The top is back to it's proper shape, the bridge isn't lifting anymore, and it sounds neat! Awesome!