Official Luthiers Forum!

My buddy has this Recording King that he got for free.

The bridge was lifting so he shot some polyurethane glue under it which held it in place but also glued the stings in place as a bonus.

Luckily he didn't clamp it so the glue was thick & I was able to saw & pry it off without too much damage.

Some chunks are missing but that doesn't bother me - I've glued in shavings of spruce on something like this before.

Some poly is on the inside too. Any ideas on how to get it off? I'm having trouble getting a chisel or cutting tool inside. Acetone?

This belly is what concerns me the most. I don't have the TJ Thompson belly reducer plates from Stewmac. Is there another way to address this besides removing the bridge plate?

Thanks,
Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I hate it when that happens

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I think you only way to get PU off once it is cured is mechanically by sanding or scraping. Acetone or any other solvent wont touch it. First time I used this on an outdoor woodworking project i got it all over my fingers and it turned black and I could not get it off with anything. Put a post on a couple of woodwork forums asking how to get it off and the only sensible answer Igot was "12 inch disk sander and 80 grit" !!!

It eventually wore off after about 6 weeks!

Good luck with this one. Bob

Kevin, that hump is weird. Does it go through to the bridge plate where it has a corresponding dip? Is the top laminated or solid?

The top is solid.

There is a corresponding dip in the bridge plate too.

That ridge peak seems to be the bottom edge of where the poly had ahold.

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

The strange hump is probably caused by the bridge peeling away at the back and over time string tension
would cause the top and bridge plate to buckle with that hump in the middle, me thinks. Bob is spot on with
regards to the poly. To me that hump needs to go.

Yep, I've seen that hump before when the bridge comes part way off or was never glued all the way and then sits there for years. The bridge gluing surface needs to be flat before you glue the bridge back on.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Gluing the strings in cracked me up. I don’t know how you would fix that without working on the bridge plate.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Gotta love the penciled in open string notes right behind the bridge.

Well, there's this (Dan's video explains it pretty well, & from what I understand, TJ is very highly regarded)
https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/T ... ducer.html

The strings made be laugh too, after the initial "Oh Shi..." moment. Luckily they all broke loose without too much fuss except the high e.

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

That’s cool. I had seen it but never watched the video. If you use it let us know how it works.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Give Dave a call he doesn't like the belly reducers and this one's belly is not bad at all and we would not use a belly reducer on it. Nothing wrong with a bit of a belly, this one is really not bad in our experience.

Preparing the bridge patch with a very sharp chisel and then fitting the bridge very well and clamping with HHG would be our approach. No belly reducer.