L. Luthier GA20W Bridge Repair | Part One

Part Two ▶

This rather lovely L. Luthier acoustic guitar is suffering from a lifting rosewood bridge. After taping off the periphery of the bridge, I carefully used a heated spatula to prise it off the soundboard. Once off, I noticed three things. The first was that there was paint stuck to the bottom of the bridge; and paint on the soundboard where there should have been only bare wood. No wonder the bridge had started to lift --- part of it had been glued to paint!

The second was that there was only one rosewood bridge locating pin when there were holes for two. Maybe omitting the second bridge pin saved L. Luthier a cent or two, who knows? Finally, as can be seen in the pic, an insufficient amount of glue had merely been squirted to the bottom of the bridge prior to clamping. No one bothered to spread it evenly for uniform coverage. And they expected it to stay on? Seriously, the bridge gluing department supervisor had better keep a closer watch on what his subordinates are doing.

Well, I've started the ball rolling by scraping off all the paint and glue residue from the bottom of the bridge. I've also sanded the bottom flat, but not entirely smooth; so that the new glue will have something to grab on to. The next step will be prepping the area of the soundboard underneath the bridge. I'll have to scrape it clean until bare wood is exposed, reglue any stray wood slivers; and sand it flat. Not really looking forward to that, I tell you. Stay tuned for Part Two.