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On one of my guitars I have an issue with the soundboard rising slightly behind the bridge between the X bracing. When the strings are at normal tension, the soundboard has a 1/8" ridge from where it is glued to the x bracing to the area behind the bridge. One corner of the bridge has a 1/16" gap bewteen the bridge and the soundboard. The rosewood bridgeplate is solidly in place and the sound and sustain are very good. It has been this way since I finished it a year ago but I want to see if I can correct it. Are there any suggestions.

I should have taken photos before I removed the bridge because I suspected my description would not be sufficient.

From the sounds of your discription, this same thing happened on my first guitar.

take a look



There is a noticeable ridge where the x-brace crosses under the bridge wing.

another couple of pictures for you

You can kind of see the ridge in this first picture.





This is all due, in my opinion to the top being to thin and the bracing a bit to light.

The sound on this guitar was really really nice, but alas, It's out of commission now because of the to lightly braced and thin top.

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The bridge on mine was (as you can see) really going to pull off. I think I could pull it off and glue it back down but that wouldn't help with the ridge or the extreme belly in the bridge area.

By the way, this guitar started showing these signs after about 10 months old and progressed very quickly. I put it to rest after only 2-1/2 years old.

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"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Thanks Rod - my guitar does look very similar to yours. Do you think inserting a spruce brace between the X braces parallel to the bridge just off the bridgeplate will help?

Yes I think that would help. Make it higher than it is wide of course and higher at the middle than at the ends where it will but up to the x-brace.

This will be a bit hard to get a perfect fit of course as well as the arc (if you made the top with an arc) matching the other braces as you probably braced the plate in a raduis dish or something similar. Some long cam clamps will get the piece in there I'm sure.

don't know what this will do for the ridge thought, hopfully it will take care of it. But it should take care of the bellying.

Maybe some others will add their wisdom as mine is very very limited.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

rod, i'm unfortunately not able to discern the ridge you refer to in your photos. though i've never used one, according to the makers spiel this would appear to be one type of situation where a bridge dr. might be beneficial. have you thought about trying one? i would be interested in hearing about the results if you decide to try it.

also interested in what sort of glue you used on the bridge since it started to fail so quickly. any ideas as to what caused that?

also, do you have any specs on the top and the bracing?

I would suggest a JLD bridge doctor for something that bellied .. not sure what else save retopping or at least rebracing if you removed the back would do ...

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Tony Karol
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I've used the bridge doctor twice to correct guitars with bellying behind the bridge. Both times it produced excellent results. It won't fix your ridges but it wiil fix the belly. Stewmac has them.

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D..

Hey guys thanks for the help and suggestions re the bridge doctor.

For me, I've resigned this guitar to the wall of shame as a first guitar which is full of mistakes and errors and I'm ok with that. There are many many other things about the guitar that of course are no where near perfect. I'm in the middle of building myself another one.

Michael, the glue used for attaching the bridge was elmer's yellow carpenter's glue. I used it for everything on the guitar. Of course I may have over clamped it or didn't apply enough glue etc....I just can't remember, that was 4 years ago now.

Anyway, I hope that we have been able to help Mark with his original question.

See Mark, I told you that the smarter guys would chime in.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

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"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

What an awesome forum we have. Thanks very much for all the suggestions.