How I repaired a lifting bridge on an acoustic guitar
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- This is a video I made whist repairing a lifted / raised bridge on an acoustic guitar. As you will see, I am far from a professional, and make several mistakes (that you can learn from!) but in the end the bridge was glued on successfully and the owner was pleased with the results.
Thanks so much for sharing this - one of the must see for amateurs like me. Yeah, watched all StuMcDo videos before this…
Yes me too, I'm just an amateur, can't afford all the high quality tools, Iv'e learned a lot though through videos like this one, adapted my tools to do the job and get advice from a local Luthier and I had quite a lot of success over the past doing relatively simple repairs, sincerely, many thanks 😊😊😊
Great video Alex,😊😊😊
Alex,it's Don here from Hamilton NZ ( on my Wife's tablet Susan R...t) I just love your ingenuity with the clamps, I do something similar, haven't got the proper tools, but I fiddle around because from watching Luthier's do similar work I know what the End Result should be and it's all gone well so far, I make my own bone nut's and saddles, fit them to improve the sound, and that's gone well for me too,Alex I don't think you did anything wrong to effect the neck, what I do now on all my Acoustic's is down tune a semitone or in you're case a full tone, that takes some pressure off the neck and I feel it adds to the sound, take care now and I look forward to some more videos 😊😊😊
Thanks for the words of encouragement! I'm glad you liked the video.
I'm curious if Jamie (or Mike ?) is still your friend. I'm not a professional by any means, but I have done the same type of repair, and watched lots of videos on the subject. I think that you did about as well as any layman could have done without the proper tools, etc. What was the alternative? Your friend could have paid to have a professional do the work. Your "tool" to clamp the bridge on was ingenious, if not 100% effective. FYI, when I made the same repair, I used the same type of huge clamps that you did, but I clamped the bridge down by putting a stout board on top of the bridge, that went all the way across the top of the guitar, and another all the way across the back, and then I used the clamps, one on either side of the guitar to compress the two pieces together. I was worried about possibly crushing the guitar by clamping it in that way, but the bridge was secured in position before the body collapsed, so I guess I was lucky. By the way, I believe, (but wouldn't swear to it), that the deformation of the top near the sound hole is from inadequate bracing, or perhaps from having the guitar strung up with heavy gauge strings over a long period of time. Anyway, I don't think it was anything you did. The guitar was kind of a piece of crap to begin with. All things considered, you did well.
Thanks rbrock, that was nice of you to say. Yes I'm still good friends with Jamie, and as a matter of fact I was chatting to him about the guitar just this weekend and, in his very drunken words, said that it played "a million times better than it did". Yeah for the price of a professional repair, he could have picked up a perfectly good used guitar from eBay. I think you're right about the collapse being caused by heavy gauge strings (or perhaps just being strung far too tightly and left for a long time).
If I ever do a repair like this again, I will appraise the guitar more thoroughly, and look out for secondary damage that might be beyond my capability to repair.
Yes I agree entirely, it was only a 'cheapie ' anyway, and my Luthier said " he never does work on cheap Acoustic's for that reason, their not worth my time " 😊😊
Yes l agree with you're conclusion, it's not an expensive guitar which is why your hydration didn't work, it would have on a better quality guitar thought so what more can you do ( put it down to experience, and move on)) cheers 😊😊
Do you have to remove the finish then glue the bridge direct to the wood? or you can apply layer of finish then glue the bridge to this finish?
I'm probably not the best person in the world to ask, but in my case I made sure it was a direct wood-on-wood contact. I think wood glue would not stick to finish very well.
Would you consider using PVA Glue it stick stronger than wood, also would you consider adding any layer to the wood then re glue to compensate for the removed finish?
There are some wood glues that are PVA, probably just fine. Check the label that it's recommended for wood, and perhaps do some tests on scrap wood to be confident it's as strong as you need.
No I wouldn't add another layer to compensate for removing finish. It probably won't make any noticeable difference, but if it did, I would compensate with a new saddle. Another layer is just adding in a potential weakness.
@@alexpetersheldon Do you have to remove the bridge and re glue, or just apply glue underneath the bridge the part that look separated, just squeeze the glue, then clamp overnight.
@ahhimary3475 I would think you should remove the bridge. This is because the likely reason the bridge isn't sticking in the first place, is because not enough finish has been removed from the top in the factory. And the glue in the factory didn't stick well to that excess finish and therefore will need to be scraped off. Just putting glue under the bridge without removing it first will mean that the glue will only be sticking to finish, instead of wood, which will not make a strong joint, as the glue cannot soak into the wood.
@@alexpetersheldonWhat might happens if you re glue the bridge without removing it? this way the finish still there and will be glued to the wood.
@@ahhimary3475 it's all to do with the fact that wood glue needs to soak into the wood a bit in order for it to be strong. It will not stick to finish very well. A bare wood to bare wood joint is going to be the strongest when using wood glue. By all means, try it without removing the bridge first, if it fails you can always re-do it the long way. Or perhaps a different type of glue would stick to finish better (superglue? Epoxy resin?). But in my inexperienced opinion, I think wood glue is the best choice.
Will the two screws not enough to hold the bridge two ends attached to the body and eliminate the need to use clamp?
I would say that it could be possible, depending on how flat the bridge is against the top. If it looks nice and tight all round, then I say go for it. If it is bent up anywhere, or gaps, then it will need clamping somehow.
Can you use Wax Crayon to wax the bridge and Acrylic paint to paint the lacquer?
Those both sound like bad choices, to be honest. As always, test on some scrap wood and see what you think of the results before trying on your actual guitar.
What do you recommend as an ideal for waxing the bridge and also for paining the lacquer some scratches that caused on removing the finish? The wax crayon can wax and colour scrap wood ok.
@@ahhimary3475 I am not really experienced in finish repairs. If you've done a test on scrap wood, and you're happy with it, then by all means go ahead and use it on your guitar. I would imagine varnish could be a good choice to repair lacquer. I wouldn't recommend acrylic paint on a guitar, as it wears away easily, and I have done this myself. Gloss paint is more hard wearing but you will probably see the brush strokes. Spray paint and spray lacquer could also be a good choice. But please check some other resources, don't just rely on my comments as I don't really know what I'm talking about, and I have pretty low standards when it comes to guitar finish.
Can I use Everbuild 52 Glue instead of Titebond original glue? or Gorilla wood (Aliphatic resin) Glue? What if the glue stick to the screws how can they be opened?
As long as they're strong wood glues then I'm sure they would be fine. Try it out on some scrap wood to make sure you're happy it's strong enough..
If you're just using wood glue, then any screws you use for clamping should just unscrew. I would say you'd only run into problems if you were using some kind of epoxy resin or superglue.
If you are particularly concerned you could apply a thin layer of grease to the screw threads before you use them, because then glue cannot stick to them.
My acoustic guitar the bridge is attached to the lacquer but glued only to the finish, after removing the finish a small gap of about 2 paper thickness between the bridge and the raw wood, can I ignore this space and re glue or score the lacquer as well?
@@ahhimary3475 I'm not sure I understand exactly. If you mean that there is still some finish around the edges that you haven't removed, then I think you should remove it, so that the bridge can sit directly on the raw wood and won't have any finish preventing a good tight fit between the bridge and the raw wood.
Or if you mean you are worried that your bridge will now sit slightly lower on the top, because there is now less material, there is no need to worry about this. If you think the slightly lower action is bad, once you've strung it up, you can compensate by fitting a new saddle. Or alternatively you can shim the existing saddle with a hard material that is as thick as the finish you have removed.
Yes it look bit difficult to explain, in your video the bridge has the same exact dimensions of the underneath finish, my guitar has the bridge of about 3 mm sit outside the finish area that it sits on the lacquer, so if the finish is removed the bridge may not have full wood to wood contact but slight gap of 1-2mm.can this be compensated by adding more glue?
@@ahhimary3475 ah yes, I understand now. I had a similar issue, what you need to do is get a very sharp knife and score around the bridge, and then carefully scrape away that finish. Take your time with this, doing 1mm at a time, because it is very easy to accidentally scrape the finish outside the score line. This is why I ended up using a wax crayon to disguise where I had made mistakes and scratched off a little too much finish.
Nice
Hey, chock it up to lessen learned. You pay tuition to go to a school to learn stuff, messing up a guitar or possibly not is the price you pay to learn on your own. I agree a neck reset may be in order, Try it, there are a lot of videos online about doing them, Rosa String works is a great luthier with tons of video's on doing them. I say go for it and learn some more stuff. I believe you made the bridge better as it was horribly installed.
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The guitar needs a neck reset, DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS, YOU ARE NOT CAPABLE ENOUGH. You havent even managed to glue the bloody bridge on yet. PLEASE STOP!!!
Your channel has no content - what do you know? Plenty caveats preceding video….
His spoken English is nearly NOT understandable to Eastern USA speakers.... Snarky remarks are for others and are not for me. I make my comments and let it go.
I'll bear that in mind on my next video! What would work best for you, if I try and put on a New York accent? Or subtitles? Or even a specially made version dubbed by a real American?
Ignore that dude. We understood it fine in the US @alexpetersheldon