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A friend's guitar (Fender 200sx (mid 90s cheap)) had the bridge lifting. Wanting to help her out and get some repair practice, I offered to fix it. When I removed the bridge, the top layer of the plywood top came off with it. It is almost completely clean about 1/8" in from the bridge all the way around. I assume it's overzealous scoring during manufacture. It must have already separated and been peeling up on its own before I started because it was lifted more than 1/2 way across the bridge.

So now that I'm here, what's the best way to fix it? It all fits together nicely and I think I can just glued it up and clamp it. Any reason that's a bad idea?

Thanks,

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

Oh! And the followup question would be what glue would I use? Since it came apart between layers, there must be some sort of plywood glue in there that I assume will keep my glue from sticking well.

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Mike Lindstrom

ep*xy...

A guiding principal of our trade is what's appropriate for the instrument......

ep*xy.....

PS: Meaning a quality epoxy such as West, Bob Smith, System III would be my choice.

PSS: Helping a friend can have scope creep. Good on ya anyway

PSSS: If the mess still fits well together just pick the fibers interfering with a great fit and go for it as is. We just don't talk about these kinds of repairs in pubic though.....

PSSSS: If someone ever asks about it be like Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak ridge when a pile of women's magazines is found on the empty bus seat next to him. Tell them someone must have left them there.....

Thanks for the suggestion. That's what I was hoping. No picking needed - no fibers to worry about. It just fits back together. I've got some (I think) West Systems left over, but I don't use a lot of epoxy any more. Does it have a shelf life? I guess I'll mix some up tonight and know in the morning.

And who knows. She's talked about having me build her a new instrument, so maybe this only needs to be a short term fix. We'll see.

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Mike Lindstrom

We've used pretty old ep*xy with no issues. One of the two parts will amber which can actually be a good thing color matching wise to older finishes. I'm told that the amber color on older ep*xy is UV cause but does not seem to impact strength.

What's the current wisdom about flexible vs. rigid epoxy for this?

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Mike Lindstrom

Ep*xy is dampening enough as it is and glue lines tend to be thick. I would go for rigid, quality ep*xy and not use the flexible stuff.