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Hi all

A friend has brought his Lyle 12 string to me to replace a bridge that has pulled off. I plan to duplicate the bridge in EIR. Don't do this kind of work much; usually only on my guitars. While duplicating the bridge and glueing it on isn't much problem for me; I need some advice on preparing the top. Quite a bit of damage occurred when the bridge came off. I am posting 2 pictures where you can see that some top wood, about half the thickness of the top, pulled free and you can see one section that pulled up but did not come completely off the top. Please tell me how you would repair that section of the top. Thanks - Mike

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guitarsbygiltzow.com

This is why I hate plywood guitars....

Suggestion.... If you are good with a chisel or a router, take it down until you have a reasonably flat surface. Glue in some new spruce, redrill the holes, and glue the bridge back on after you clean it up.

Does it have that adjustable steel piece with a plastic saddle in it? Make a new bridge from rosewood with a proper slot and bone saddle.

Might improve the tone, but it will be lots of work. Price accordingly, and good luck!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Hey Michael. These were not very good guitars back in the day. They were made in Japan in the 60's and 70's and did not originally sell for much.

Nonetheless guitars are often "part of me...." as one of my clients told us last week so where we may not see much value others may have memories of that first girlfriend/boyfriend, etc. or what ever and they can be priceless to someone else.

Frank Ford has a great write up on his site FRETS.net where he takes a "scoop" out of the top and replaces it with a new scoop not unlike what Chris is advocating above. That might be a good approach but know in advance it's a LOT of work especially the area replaced outside of the bridge footprint where finish repair and color matching needs to happen to make it right and whole.

Bridges often lift for a reason so be sure to very carefully inspect the bracing to be sure that it's all in place and nicely glued down. More likely is the possibility that because of the lousy, cheap slotted pl*stic bridge pins that over time the bridge plate has been eaten away and is now damaged from the string balls starting to migrate up through the pin holes as the pl*stic pins bent and distorted.

If the bridge plate has excessive wear and that is not addressed any top repair and new bridge will not last very long because the original causation of the bridge lift was not addressed.

To address bridge plate wear when this fix is appropriate for the instrument and it would be for this one is a bridge plate cap. A bridge plate cap is often made from some nice, hard maple and can be around .050 - .060" thick and just large enough to cover all pin holes with a bit of over lap beyond the pin holes. It's easier to predrill the holes in the cap before installation. Installation is done with a couple of locating pins, we use something that glue does not stick to well if at all, teflon, etc. 3/16th" and then with a flat caul under the cap that is aligned with the pins glue and clamp the sucker in place.

After installation and when the top is fixed and the new bridge is on drill with a 3/16" bit and ream for the new pins. You are using new pins, right. It would also be a good idea to convert the thing to unspotted pins during this process.

One last thing that should have been the first thing. Check the neck angle, it very likely may need a reset and that my friend may make the economics of working on this one not work for either owner or you.

Hi Hesh & Chris
Thank you both for the excellent ideas and comments. I thought the bridge was plastic when I first saw it but after cleaning it up it is EIR. I think I am going to try to route out the top down to the last tear out depth and put in a piece of spruce that will be just about as large as the bridge footprint. Make a new bridge of EIR about 1/32 of an inch larger all around and glue that on with a new saddle (to replace the old adjustable one). I will be checking the integrity of the old bridge plate to make sure that it is in good condition or replace or cap it as suggested. Here's something interesting: there is a brace that is 3/8" wide and 1/2" high that runs down the inner center seam of the top. When they drilled the bridge pin holes they go right through that brace on each side of it. Pretty awful! As to value I don't think there is a great deal of value here. The owners is a good friend, purchaser & player of one of my guitars and he has been a good friend in many ways so I'm doing this for him for free. Not a business decision; more of a pay-it-forward or backward one. Anyway thanks for the help - Mike

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guitarsbygiltzow.com

Right - nil resale value, fixed or not. But that's not the only reason for repairing some things.

Me, I'd waste no time making up a big batch of thickened epoxy to paste the bridge back in place. It will fill all the voids, leak into the shredded veneers, and hold the bridge on quite well. Naturally, you have to clean it up well as you work, and take care not to allow lots of it to dribble inside the guitar. Depending on the state of the innards, I'd probably overlay the bridge plate with .10" thick maple, with the grain oriented parallel to the string pull. Might well glue it on at the same time as the bridge to save some effort and cleanup.

It works - I've done lots of these pro bono for the VA, local middle schools, etc.

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

Hi Frank

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. Lots of good information for me to think about. - Mike

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guitarsbygiltzow.com

I did something similar to a plywood Alvarez that Frank has suggested. Still holding strong after a few years. My nephew beats it up daily.

Sent from my HTC Desire 626s using Tapatalk

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Another day, another dollar.