Last time, I left you with the bridge area of the ‘Techno’ clamped – with the bridge removed – as corrective surgery for the bridge footprint.
If you wish to read about what transpired earlier, you can do so here
After a couple of days, the clamps were released and the process began to remove the belly (a major cause of elevated action).
Forty-eight hours in this position and the belly was all but gone.
Next step in the ‘healing process’ was the glueing of the bridge to the top. Enough glue, tight enough clamps, ample time is the recipe to do it. And so it is usually.
For a little over five days, the instrument remained in clamps, and while it was in that position, I got other work done.
A new piezo element was installed
The fretboard was cleaned and moisturised, and the fretwires were shined up some.
A new nut was installed
After the clamps were taken off, the piezo element was threaded through and a new bone saddle was installed. However, when strings were thrown on
the action was a mile high. After the saddle shave, the saddle looked like this
and there was no way to make the guitar play right without cutting string slots. I took permission from the owner and cut slots for the two outside strings as well as for the ‘B’ string.
In the photograph above, you can probably make out the slots cut for the ‘e’ and ‘B’ string, but look carefully and there’s a slot cut for the ‘E’ string as well.
Meanwhile, the headstock looked neat with the strings wound cleanly.
The one blemish I saw in the guitar was the fall-away after the body joint. I wonder if you will be able to pick it up in the following photograph
I kept the instrument with me for two days, observing it, even playing it, apprehending that the bridge may lift but it all stayed good.
Yet, the second day after the owner had taken it home,the bridge began lifting again!!!
The July-October jinx had returned!
I have asked the owner to return by the end of this month or early next month, by which time the humidity would have settled, which will allow glue-up jobs to proceed unhindered.
