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Hi,

I've opened my shop recently, and one of my first client came in with an Estrada classical guitar from the 70's, she has seen better days...





The client want to have new tuners installed, and new strings. I'm afraid the bridge can come loose with the tension of the new strings.

It should not be that diffucult the slide a hot spatula under this mess and have it unglued, clean the area, reshape the bottom of the bridge and properly reglue.

Even if the bridge stay in place with new strings, I'm not very excited about the idea of letting a guitar in that shape out of my shop...

I didn't give the client a quote yet.
I'm just starting this new business, the goal here is not making money, but to build a client list (this client told me about 3 others instruments that need some care).

Any advice ?

Thanks !

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The saddle and bridge by themselves don't look too hot either. I would show it to the client, explain the problems, give them quotes and do what they want done. If they don't want to fix the bridge, don't fix it. I would probably invite them back to witness the tuning of the strings...

Ok, I'll get the client a quote for the strings and tuners. And warn him about the issues (+ estimate quote for the repair)

Thanks

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I hate DIY'ers and their dang hot glue guns.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I guess my first two questions are - is the bridge on tight (and do you think it will stay on) and is the geometry relatively correct (ie can you make it playable with the bridge glued on like that). If the answer to either question is no, then you need to take the bridge off, clean up the mess and do it correctly. That may (actually, will) probably damage finish which leads to more questions.

I would estimate a couple of hours of labor depending on what you think you'll have to do with the finish, and have some sort of disclaimer that the work will be structurally sound and playable but might not look pretty.

This isn't trying to one-up, but here is a 1977 Les Paul Custom that came into my shop. A long time ago the neck got broken at the heel and the tenon (short tenon style), the guy squeezed some Gorilla glue into the joint and didn't clamp it. He heard that "Freeman could fix it". I told him that had he brought it to me in the first place I could, but since I can't get it back apart there is nothing I can do now. Nice wall hanger....

Also, since you are just starting out with this repair sillyness, are you comfortable regluing the bridge on a classical guitar? It can be a bit tricky building a caul to fit a fan braced guitar and another for the bridge and off course it requires two or three clamps the correct length. You will do more lifted bridges in the future, lots more in fact, mostly steel string, so it is worthwhile tooling up for this kind of repair.

... Expensive wall hanger indeed !

I'm confident enough to do it. I use this type of setup for gluing my steel string guitar bridges :

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/640x ... DQ9jda.jpg

and I just ran across that neat trick from Dan Erlewine for making the inside caul : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWW4aKxfSJwd

The bridge placement is ok-ish : bang on the theorical scale length (so, no compensation whatsoever)

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All going well



After a bit of cleanup :



Some fibers went with the old glue (that thing was brittle), I'm thinking I better go with titebond instead of hhg, because the surface is not perfect.

edit : Ho, yep, enough work for today. Seems that you enjoy that kind of beverage here :


Cheers !

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The bridge was reglued



You can notice that the tape that I used to protect the soundboard was a bit too sticky, and pull some of the finish (french polish) off (left side of the bridge).

I've drop filled these small dents with super blonde fresh shellac mix, but the wood change color to a cherry red ! I tried drop filling with CA, but no luck... Same with emtech EM7000.

I tought there was something on the wood that reacted with the finish, so I sanded a small area to the bare wood, and reapplied somem shellac, and it looks like this :



Even if I refinish the entire top, the color will be awful.

So, all went very fine until now, but this is going to be a disaster. What can I do to make it looks good enough ?

My theory is that the reddish color was the actual color of the wood, but the exposure to UV turned it way lighter...

edit : On the other side of the bridge, I just drop filled, levelled and polished. The small darker dents are barely noticable. Should have done that on both side. Better is sometimes worse than good

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