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Hello,

Recently I was removing a bridge on a cheap Ibanez guitar. I didn’t care too much about how well it came off because the body is going to be used for some experiments. So I decided to do the old chisel / hammer technique to try to pop it off. It didn’t come off cleanly, but it did come off.

I was surprised to see that the bridge was glued to the lacquer. There was no clearing for the footprint at all.

How common is this? I’ve read here that Martin and Taylor both clear the finish away with slightly differing techniques. Do all the rest of factory guitars just glue it to the finish?

Brad


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It's very common. I don't know about 'all' but I'd dare say most others do. Some make vain attempts to clear it but instead leave a huge ledge which probably actually makes it worse. If you are buying guitars in the 500 dollar range it's probably to be expected.

Thanks. That’s crazy. I would not have thought that after how much time we spend on here talking about clearing the bridge footprint.

Learn something new everyday I guess.

Brad


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doubt that is was lacquer sure it wasn't poly?
Martin does remove finish from the top as does Gibson.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Oh, probably was poly. To be honest, I probably couldn’t tell the difference.




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Hey Brad, what John said it's not uncommon on poly finished guitars to use CA to glue the bridges on directly to the poly finish.

It's also not necessarily an unsound practice even though I once thought so too and said so on this forum some years back.

Poly can be so very tenacious which you will verify when you try to chisel it off that gluing a bridge directly onto it does work very well if the instrument is not subjected to abuse or major humidity swings. CA does not OTOH do well in sheer hence any dimensional instability perhaps caused by RH swings to the gluing surface of the top can result in bridge lifting along with string tension. The same thing on a nitro/HHG guitar may result in bridge lifting to BTW....

Rick Turner who makes killer, high-end guitars for many of the stars does this too, finish in poly and use CA to glue bridges. Rick's likely one of the most knowledgable Luthiers alive today and he doesn't take any crap either. If it works for Rick it's more than good enough for me.

In my own experience seeing dozens of damaged guitars a week most bridge lifts that we see are on more expensive instruments with nitro finishes and the traditional clear the bridge patch method. They just don't usually clear enough finish or insure consistent clamping or, or, or any of the plethora of things that if you don't do when regluing a bridge that will bite you.

By the way I was once critical of Rick for gluing bridges directly onto a poly finish. I did not understand that it takes a thermonuclear detonation to get a well applied poly finish to delaminate. We live and learn, eh.