Official Luthiers Forum!

I did this repair back in 2020.

Part 1 [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V6k2NlCN5U[/youtube]

Part 2 [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGMwkya45dQ[/youtube]

Logan well done and I just saw this. Going to repost one of your links so others can just click on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGMwkya45dQ

I wanted to draw everyone else's attention to how Collings glues their bridges. This is about as good as it gets folks very nearly the entire foot print is exploited with only a very small perimeter part that is not glued. The pins are not intended to prevent lifting they are for positioning and useful for that. Taylor on the GS mini's use pins and a number of the biggest names in Lutherie who I have worked on their guitars also use nylon/plastic locating pins.

Logan I am not sure if you are seeing a pocket in the top or if Bill Collings RIP was routing a rabbit around the bridge perimeter. What I can see from here it looks just like what we do a rabbit around the bridge perimeter about .005" inward and .003" upward so the bridge sits at it's edges on finish obscuring the business end of the glue up nicely.

I'll also bring your attention to the glue layer and how uniform it mostly is and were we see some wood too, pretty uniform.

So even the best glued bridge will lift with abuse and RH swings so a lifting bridge need not be an indication that the maker screwed up and this is certainly a fine example of what you would hope to see when we do remove a bridge.

Very good example Logan thanks man for posting this!! Also I'm a Collings snob now too and have two of them and I love them, best guitars I have ever had. I have a 290 and an I-35. My Suhr gets jealous of my Collings

Update - We think that the pocket you see is what resulted from Collings routing off the finish over the bridge patch. We know them to do this and we also know Collings to rabbet their bridges to match the finish pocket and we do this too and got the idea from Bill decades ago.

The Collings bridge reglues we did under a reimbursement agreement (no authorized repair shops for Collins, but customer could pay us and get reimbursed by Collings) were all pocketed. The finish under the edge of the bridge was pretty narrow, but was definitely not a net-sized rout.

_________________
For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Martin is routing the top now too so it sounds like Collings is pocketing the top. They didn't used to do this wonder what spawned the change.

Monkey-see, monkey-do, or cheap, reliable CNC? Not sure...

_________________
For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan