Payar Ukulele Bridge Reglue

This cute little L. Luthier Payar Tenor Ukulele was bought used. One fine day, the bridge suddenly popped off, revealing a gnarly mess of dried glue and wood slivers. Obviously, this had happened before and one of the previous owners had attempted to repair the damage. The condition of this ukulele was very similar to the KAK Concert Ukulele I'd repaired earlier this year. I knew that I had to approach this repair very carefully so as not to damage the soundboard any further.

Cleaning the underside of of the bridge was relatively easy. However, cleaning and leveling the area underneath the bridge was another story. The dried glue had found its way right into the wood fibres and would not come off. I decided to use a heat gun to soften the stubborn glue before scraping it off. And yes, I should have been more careful with the heat gun as I ended up scorching the soundboard in a couple of places. Once the glue had been removed, wayward wood slivers were removed with chisels and the area concerned leveled with sandpaper.

With the soundboard sufficiently prepped, it was time to stain the rest of the soundboard with ColorTone Medium Brown (#5033). Following this, the entire body was sealed with a couple coats of Tru-Oil. Once the Tru-Oil had cured, the bridge was reglued to the soundboard using Titebond III, soundhole clamps; and wooden cauls. The clamps came off after four days, and dried glue squeeze-out carefully cleaned off. The ukulele was then strung with a fresh set of strings and tuned gCEA.

That's about it for this post. Thanks for dropping by. Stay home, stay safe, and God bless :)

L. Luthier GA20W Bridge Repair | Part Two

◀ Part One

As detailed in the previous post, the bottom of the bridge and soundboard contact area have already been prepped for regluing. Naturally, the next step would be to reglue the bridge. This I've done with Titebond III Ultimate Wood Glue and StewMac Soundhole Clamps. I dispensed with the lone existing rosewood bridge locating pin and replaced it with two bridge pins; one in the 1st string hole and the other in the sixth. The clamps were removed after four days, which would have given the glue sufficient time to fully cure.

After removing any dried glue squeeze-out, the immediate area around the repair was cleaned. Following this, the perimeter of the bridge was sealed with a couple coats of Tru-Oil. I needed to do this because despite using tape and a sharp scalpel to score the thick finish around the bridge before removing it, some of the finish had chipped; exposing a thin line of raw wood. Sealing these exposed areas with Tru-Oil should prevent moisture from getting into the wood; in my humble opinion.

Meanwhile, the fretboard surely needed reconditioning. The frets and fretboard were first cleaned with 3M Scotch-Brite Pads, after which a generous amount of Dunlop Formula 65 Fretboard Ultimate Lemon Oil was applied. After leaving the lemon oil on for about 15 minutes, any excess was wiped off with a clean rag; and the job was complete. The bridge was also treated with lemon oil as I thought the rosewood looked really dry.

Next on the list was restringing the guitar with a set of Alice A306-XL (010-047) and tuning up. As the relief was just where I wanted it with the instrument in standard tuning; there was no need for any truss rod adjustment. And so, after polishing the whole guitar with carnauba wax; this L. Luthier GA20W was ready to be played once more. Here's a short YouTube Video of yours truly trying out this lovely guitar.

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.

Taylor 150e 12-String Dreadnought Bridge Repair

This post details how I went about repairing the lifting bridge on a Taylor 150e 12-String Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar featured in a previous post. First of all, let me share with you that a lifting, or completely popped-off bridge is not an uncommon occurrence where acoustic guitars are concerned. And it doesn't only happen to the cheaper no-name ones; even those from big names are not spared.

The main cause of this malady is, as I see it; lacquer or varnish under the bridge. On lots of guitars I've repaired, the area under the bridge was not lacquer-free. In fact, there was no difference between this area and the rest of the top (soundboard). So, in effect, since the bridge was initially glued on, the glue on the bottom surface of the bridge had been adhering to a thin layer of lacquer/varnish; and not wood.

Given this scenario, it would only be a matter of time before string tension proved too strong for the thin layer of finish to handle, and the bridge would pull off the soundboard, taking with it a couple slivers of spruce; or whatever wood the soundboard was made from.

For a strong and long-lasting cohesion between the bridge and top, the bridge must be glued to bare wood. This can be achieved by taping off the area that would be under the bridge before applying lacquer or varnish (ie finish) to the top. Then, it would be a simple process of removing the tape, and gluing on the bridge. But perhaps this process consumes too much time, labor and dinero; hence the reluctance on the part of certain manufacturers to do it right.

On this particular Taylor 12-string, the majority of the bridge bottom-soundboard contact area was free of varnish. However, they'd retained a narrow band of varnish all around the inner perimeter of the bottom of the bridge. I guess that this was done for aesthetic reasons, ie to eliminate a visible "border" between the perimeter of the bridge and the varnish on the soundboard.

All fine and dandy, except for the fact that while the main area of the bridge bottom had been firmly glued to the bare spruce top, the perimeter had merely been glued to the varnish. That's a sure recipe for disaster! And so, string tension, compounded by a "bulging belly;" finally caused the bridge to lift from the soundboard.

After meticulously scoring the outline of the bridge (to minimize finish chipping), I carefully prised the bridge loose with a heated spatula. Much to my surprise, the bridge came off without much ado. Following this, I carefully scraped the old glue and varnish off the exposed wood, and leveled the area with sandpaper. I also scraped and sanded the bottom of the bridge clean of any glue or spruce remnants, made sure it was absolutely flat; and roughed it up a little with 180-grit sandpaper.

Now, since the Taylor was also suffering from a bulging belly aka acoustic belly bulge, I needed to address this problem before regluing the bridge. I'm happy to say that two few weeks of of humidifying, dehumidifying, and judicious clamping got the soundboard sufficiently flat again (I checked with a spirit level).

That having been taken care of, it was time to reglue the bridge with Titebond III Ultimate Wood Glue. A dry test run was carried out with suitable cauls and clamps so I would know exactly what to do before any glue was applied. As it turned out, I needed four StewMac Soundhole Clamps for the job.

I dispensed with the original tiny plastic bridge locating pins since they were terribly bent out of shape. Instead, I used two old bridge pins to ensure the bridge was properly aligned and positioned.The clamps stayed on until the glue squeeze-out turned brown, indicating that the Titebond III had dried and cured completely.

Once the clamps were off, it was time to clean up dried glue squeeze-out and any residue. There was also the extremely tedious task of cleaning dried glue from twelve bridge pin holes, as well as three holes for the ES2 pickup sensors. The repaired areas were then waxed with Birchwood Casey Gun Stock Wax, and gently buffed.

I also treated the bridge to some Dunlop Formula 65 Fretboard Ultimate Lemon Oil as it was looking kind of dry and thirsty. The fretboard was cleaned and rejuvenated with the same magic oil; and the frets polished to a high lustre. As per the owner's instructions, this Taylor 150e was strung to pitch with a set of Elixir 11152 Nanoweb Lights. I also sanded the bottom of the saddle a tad to reduce the action at the bridge slightly.

KAK Ukulele Bridge Reglue

According to its owner, this KAK Concert Ukulele was hanging on the wall when the bridge "suddenly popped off," taking some of the top veneer with it. So, the task before me was to re-glue both the bridge and veneer, and make the repair look presentable. I discovered that the bridge had popped off because there had only been a few squiggles of glue attaching the bridge to the veneer. The glue joint would have been much more secure if the bridge had been glued to the bare wood of the top, methinks.

After separating the slivers of veneer still attached to the bottom of the bridge, I carefully re-glued them to the top with Titebond III and lightly clamped them overnight. Once the glue was dry, I scraped off the excess glue and filled any gaps with super glue. The affected areas were then sanded, stained and sealed with a couple layers of Tru-Oil. If you look closely at the pics, you can make out the repaired areas.

As for the bridge, it's location was accurately marked on the top. Then, the boundaries were lightly scored with a sharp hobby knife and veneer carefully scraped off from the area within. The result was a neat rectangle that exposed the bare wood of the top. This would provide a good gluing surface for the bridge.

The bottom surface of the bridge itself was also prepped by sanding, with the intention of removing any old glue still sticking to it; and also provide a flat surface for maximum contact with the top. Once again, Titebond III was used to re-glue the bridge to the top.

The clamps were taken off after a week, and dried glue squeeze-out cleaned off. After light sanding and leveling, the whole top was sealed with Tru-Oil. The ukulele was then restrung, tuned to pitch, and delivered to its owner, who did declare that it "sounded better than before." Oh, happy day :)

Yamaha CG-110 Classical Guitar Repair

Introduction
It was an old, beat up guitar. The finish was cracked, flaky and severely discolored in several areas. The fretboard was dry and caked with hardened sweat and grime. The frets, well, they were not too worn; but definitely needed a good steel-wooling and polish.The tuners were missing, and the original nut had been replaced with one that was not only poorly-cut; but also not wide enough to cover the full width of the fretboard.

To make matters worse, the bridge had come off some time in the past, only to be re-glued to the top and fastened with wood screws for good measure. That 'repair' didn't last very long, as the bridge had popped off once again; this time taking with it slivers of wood. I looked at the original bridge, it was full of holes and had to be replaced. The body was another sad story. It was was peppered with numerous dings, divots, and deep scratches; and literally coming apart at the seams, particularly in the area around the neck heel.

Work Done
Repairs to the body were addressed by first gluing the affected areas back together with Titebond III, followed by clamping. After the glue had dried, the repaired areas were saturated with super glue until a hard protective layer formed. This layer was sanded flat before the next layer of super glue was applied. The process was repeated ad nauseam; but this was the only way to restore structural integrity to the body.

The fretboard was given a new lease of life after some serious scraping, cleaning with naphta (Zippo lighter fluid); and generous application of lemon oil. The badly-tarnished frets were abraded with 400 - 1.2K grits of sandpaper, steel-wooled with 0000 grade stuff; and given a light polish with Autosol. The nut slot was cleaned out, and a custom-fitted bone nut glued into place. Those missing tuners were also replaced.

Re-gluing the bridge was by far the most time-consuming task. The area beneath the bridge had not been taped off before lacquer was first applied at the factory. This meant that from day one, the bridge had been glued to lacquer, and not wood. It's no wonder, then, that the bridge eventually popped off. I've seen this shortcoming on quite a few acoustic guitars so far; including a rather expensive 12-string. So, after marking the correct position of the new bridge, I had no choice but to meticulously scrape off all the existing lacquer underneath, repair the tear-out; and level the area before re-gluing said bridge.

It seemed like forever, but eventually the guitar was ready for re-stringing and final setup. O happy day, I must say the bone nut and saddle were a much-needed upgrade for this grand old lady. As always, no regrets, even though the smell while filing or sanding bone invariably makes me want to puke.