HAPPY NEW YEAR, FOLKS!
While being a post about a repair I undertook recently, this also is an illustration and proof that you must always bring your guitar with the strings on, even if they are tuned down.
This helps me check out a whole host of problems: belly, lifting bridge, action over the fretboard, relief in it…
Without the strings, I will have to put on a fresh set of strings, because I need to measure the parameters mentioned above, the cost of which will be PASSED ON TO YOU!
This guitar a, #Pluto, sporting a handsome sunburst, came to me for a cracked bridge – without strings, and for a fresh set of strings.
I can understand the thinking behind the missing strings: take them off so that they do not cause any further damage. Correct to quite an extent but having them on and tuned a step or one-and-a-half steps down won’t hurt anymore, but, in fact, aid me much.
Anyway, I went about cleaning and repairing the bridge, and while it was healing, I worked on the fretboard and fretwires, cleaning and polishing them.
I put on a fresh set of strings to find the action a bit high. Just for the heck of it, I decided to see how the bridge looked from the end block end of the guitar. There was a gap under the bridge right around.
And so, the strings were taken off in preparation for bridge removal and the knives were brought out.
The bridge came off and with it some of the top too, glued as it was with super glue.
The bridge and its footprint were cleaned to the margin marked and then readied for glueing. The glue job went well.
After a wait of a day, I strung the guitar up again and sent it home.
