Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all...

Here's a question I wanted to pose to the group...

My uncle's 1985 D-28 is exhibiting the tell-tale signs of a worn bridge plate. The ball ends of the strings are starting to come through the bridge plate and there is visible wear to be seen upon inspection with a mirror including some wear extending between the holes now. I do not believe there is any cracking of the bridge plate or top.

Rather than replacing the bridgeplate or taking the instrument in for a repar or using a brass "platemate," I am debating using a trick I've seen used on some other instruments-- namely, installing a thin strip of ebony over the existing rosewood bridgeplate.

To that end, my questions are: 1) do you as a group think this is an acceptable and viable option, at least temporarily, 2) how thick of a slice is normally used in such an application, and 3) are there any considerations as far as grain orientation goes?

Thank you in advance to everyone for your help and willingness to share your expertise. I greatly appreciate it.

John Creech
http://www.myspace.com/johncreech

if you do enough repair work to justify the expenditure the tool s-m sells to repair bridge plates is a gem. it allows you to remove the damaged wood and replace it without damaging the top.

just overlaying a piece of wood would probably tend to be only a short term solution.

I can't comment on your idea of a graft.
However I did notice that StewMac is marketing a tool for cutting divots out of bridge plates and shaping the grafts to match. If you could find a repair person with the tool it would be a slick way to do a conservative repair.
John

Oops- Michael, you got there first.

yup!! i grabbed one of those things as soon as they came out a few years ago. it works like a charm!!

I noticed that at stewmac's website and I wondered how well it worked. Being a novice, I'm a little scared to do that myself, but I might give it a go on a yard sale special first.

Thanks for the input!

it is a very simple and easy tool to use. if you can pay attention to what you are doing it is almost foolproof. the one thing it is not is quick. when cutting the plate you have to do alternate holes, cut and glue your plugs. then when they are set you can do the rest. when everything has cured, you can do the laborious task of cleaning up inside. if your hands are more normal sized than mine it would not be quite so laborious. the closer you can get the thickness of the plug stock to equal the thickness of the plate the easier it is.

download s-m's instructions and you will see what i mean. all things considered i would not want to go back to doing without it.

The SM tool is fantastic, and is the way to go.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."