Guitar repair – A #seagull gets wings!!

To those unfamiliar with the brand name, Seagull Guitars and Simon & Patrick are sister brands under the Godin company, a Canadian giant (To know its worth just check out its selling price in India).

I received this model to work on, recently.

The owner, a knowledgeable young man, brought in the instrument after he saw the action rise on it and discovered that the bridge was rising.

As I went over the excellent construction of the instrument, one point rankled me – the nut and saddle on such a pricey instrument was of a micarta-type material. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there are many who find nothing wrong with the material, but in my book, nothing matches up to bone except ivory! If you don’t fancy too bright a tone, I could do buffalo horn for you.

Anyway, the customer was all for the bone replacement after I extolled its virtues to him.

Strings were taken off, before the bridge was gently prised off. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the bridge had been glued on with regular wood glue (they still find the time to do such things???)!

I’m joking, of course! In an ideal world you want the bridge to be glued on to the top with wood glue, so that when people like me need to take it off – for whatever reason – it comes off clean without damaging itself or the top.

But did I say it came off clean? It did, well almost, except it pulled up a little flake on the treble end of the top. Nothing that good old wood glue wouldn’t cure.

While this dried, I went to work on the bridge.

Despite getting glue and little wood fibers off it, there was still an odd boundary marked on it, probably left by the margin on the top.

Do you see it? I cleaned that up and I cleaned up the bridge too. But then there was still a step to go before I could glue the bridge to the top: checking whether the bridge was flat enough to be stuck to the top.

Simple, mark it with pencil and then keep sanding till the pencil lines disappear. But actually, not so simple. It required a lot of elbow grease, and with it, time.

Finally, I got it looking like this

With everything ready, I glued and clamped the bridge to the top.

While it cured, other areas of the instrument were paid attention to like the fretboard, the fretwires and the hardware on the headstock.

There was just a bit of a problem: the nut was just a hair short in its slot. Meaning, the width of Seagull guitar necks is slightly more than what I am generally used to working on. It was a mistake and I told the owner so. He was gracious enough to say that if the instrument played correctly, he did not have a problem with minor aesthetics.

So, here are a few close-up shots of the nut in the slot.

Meanwhile the glue had cured under the bridge and the clamps were taken off and the bridge was given a ‘coat of love’. Look at it glow!

The strings the young man chose were Elixir 12s.

With a swanky new bone nut and saddle and fresh set of strings, this baby could sing (I knew that without these three in place).

When the owner came to pick up the instrument, he was pleasantly surprised  – maybe even thrilled! 

Here are the parting shots not just of this blog post but the last blog post of 2025.   

Have a blast ushering in the New Year, but stay safe, people. More importantly, keep your guitars safe!!!

Until 2026…!!!!!!!!!