Among the new(er) guitars in the Indian market, Tanglewood is a brand that I have come to like for its simplistic yet sturdy design.
Yet the Tanglewood that came to me recently
had a lifting bridge, and one which seemed to have taken a bit of the top as it lifted. Also, the belly behind the bridge was H-U-G-E!!!!
The owner, a returning customer, pleaded with me to get the guitar into shape again and I had to explain to him that I would try my best but as things stood, it did not look too promising, for as I would take the bridge off, more of the top would come off. How would I reconstruct the top?
I can tell you now that I have never taken more time to take a bridge off the top as I did with this guitar. After some 25 mins (usually it takes no more than 10) of prying and prodding, and crackling sounds (which told me I was trying to break CA glue/epoxy) the bridge came off.
It was a huge sigh of relief that I heaved when I saw the bridge footprint was indeed intact and not a gaping hole. However, much of the material from the top had remained glued to the underside of the bridge.
This seemed the right time to clean up the bridge footprint on the top.
However, the astounding thing was the belly on the instrument. It was like a whole step
But first, the pulled up bits of wood needed to be glued back. There were three major spots.
After that I turned my attention to the belly, to try and reduce it as much as possible. I began…
After two or three days, the belly had reduced but not appreciably
Again preparations began to attempt a second time
Again, after a couple of days, the results were encouraging but not complete. And then I got thinking. What if the braces were loose on the inside? I checked and, indeed, both arms of the ‘X’-brace were loose.
I apologise for the muddy photographs but that is a .006 inch feeler gauge finding enough room to wiggle underneath the braces. These needed to be fixed first before anything else.
While these were glued, I turned my attention to the bridge and cleaning it.
Here too, there is a funny story to relate. The more I worked on the bridge, scraping it, the more I felt that I was working with ebony.
Now, this was not a high-end instrument and I was a little surprised that Tanglewood had used ebony on it. However, when I checked the instrument specifications online, it read that the bridge was of rosewood! Try as hard as I might have, I failed to notice a single attribute of rosewood in the guitar bridge, which was blacker and plainer than any rosewood I have seen till date.
Were my eyes lying or had Tanglewood made a boo-boo while compiling specifications of this model? Let’s see if we get a clarification from the company.
After the clamps came off, I measured the belly, and it was much lower than earlier, but there was enough there to throw the action of the instrument out of whack!
Again, the belly was put into compression mode
And again, after a two-day interval when the clamps were removed, the belly was measured.
This time, the results were most encouraging.
The stage seemed set for the glueing of the bridge to the top. But that is a story for next time!
