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I'm looking at an early 70's Martin D-18. The original bridge has been shaved down at some point to forego a neck reset, so the bridge is not original.

Now the guitar has come to the point of needing a neck reset. The choice is either to neck reset to the original but shaved bridge, or replace the bridge with a reproduction at the original bridge thickness and reset the neck angle to the reproduction.

The guitar also intonates about 6 cents sharp at the 12th fret (although evenly across strings), so a new bridge provides a bonus opportunity to somewhat improve intonation.

I'm interested in opinions: preserve or replace the original shaved bridge?

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David Radlin
http://www.facebook.com/radlin.guitars

Give me a call Dave. I have a few Martin bridges on hand, will save you some work. I hate when people shave the bridges some repair people locally seem to prefer that option.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Early 70's Martins had bridges located in the wrong place. They made tens of thousands this way because of a bad jig that no one noticed for a while... Repair folks have been addressing the issue for decades now. It's likely that the intonation issues that you are seeing are because the saddle slot is in the wrong place. Since Martin uses pre-slotted saddles this means the bridge is in the wrong place.

In your example the bridge should be tossed. A check should be made for proper saddle location and then you should also check to see if the pin holes need to be filled and moved for the new saddle location.

The shaved bridge should always be pitched (saved if it is part of something vintage and valuable, this is not one of those, yet...) and a new bridge made with the saddle in the correct location. None of this should be done until after the neck is reset to the height of a proper, unshaved bridge.

If by chance this belongs to the original owner it would all be covered under warranty.

Hesh, would it still be warranted even with the bridge shaved down? Does Martin replace and properly locate the bridge on these guitars to address the factory misplacement? If they do, they must have had to pony up for a lot of repair work!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker