There are times in guitar repair – as are in life – when you get the feeling that the Almighty is testing your patience and resolve!
A simple job like a bridge reglue, where you basically repeat steps that you have repeated umpteen times before to certain success, will yield horrifyingly discouraging results!
Take for example this Ibanez that came to me a couple of months ago.
Yes! It was presented before me exactly like this with the Hydra-like tentacles sticking out, as if searching for a prey to sting! There were other eyebrow raisers too.
The winds on the post left a lot to be desired
The nut slots were a little too deep for my liking
There was enough dust on the guitar to say that it had been in a state of disrepair for quite some time. The state of the strings also told a story of neglect, rusted and corroding as they were.
However, the main reason why it was on my counter was
this gap under the bridge through which you could drive a bus and park.
As I had told the owner, there were two options before him: 1) I could try and push glue under the bridge, clamp it shut, and hope it stuck, or, 2) take the proper route, take the bridge off, clean its underside as well as its footprint on the top and then reglue them. The owner chose to take the the “proper route”.
But before the bridge could come off, the strings had to come off. In that process occurred a tragedy and a discovery.
The bridgepin breaking off in its hole was the tragedy, while
the state of the fretboard was another instance of disregard for the instrument: dry and with months of grime caked on it.
But the task at hand was to reglue the lifting bridge, for which the bridge would have to be first removed. It came off, though grudgingly, but the more important fact was that it did not take much of the wood from the top.
What you see in the photograph below is evidence that random spillage of super glue was used to hold the bridge to the top. Whether it would hold for more than six months was no concern of the manufacturers.
What followed was the cleaning of both surfaces.
Once the top was cleaned of old CA glue and splinters, another problem presented itself.
The lifting bridge had managed to lift the top enough to create a step-like lift, right in the centre of where the bridge had to sit. This ‘step’ would not allow a proper surface to surface and contact and needed to be flattened for the bridge to sit correctly and stick securely to the top.
Repeated efforts over a few days and heat and pressure treatments flattened it out.
During the flattening process, I even checked inside the guitar to spot loose braces, but there were none. Satisfied, I proceeded to glue the bridge to the top.
And that is where trouble began.
After two days, I released it from the clamps, put on the strings chosen by the owner
After a day, I called the owner to come and collect the guitar. He came and happily took it away, only to send me a photograph, a day later, showing the bridge rising again.
I called the guitar in, told the owner, I will try to push glue under the bridge and clamp it shut, hoping that it would stick. If it did not, I would have to take off the bridge again, and reglue it all anew.
I pushed glue under the bridge and clamped it shut. When I released it from the clamps, I strung it up and waited for two days before again asking the owner to come and collect the instrument.
Before he could arrive, the bridge started lifting again!!!
I stopped the owner and waited for my exasperation to end – not talking to anyone. The next morning it was back to Block A – removing the bridge, cleaning both surfaces and reglueing.
This time it stuck. Why? Someone please tell me.
The same process, the same clamping pressure, same number of days left in clamps…
Ah, well…guitars can get moody at times, I guess!
