fixing a ripped of bridge

[lusthansa]

Hi, I own one old scrappy Aria A550 nylon string guitar. I mounted high tension strings (nylon, not steel ;-)) and 1 month after the bridge ripped of with an explosion-like sound. Now the body's top is w/o bridge. I am no professional luthier but I wanna fix it on my own.

How do I manage this? Which glue? Which temperature while hardening? Do I have to press it down? Do I have to apply glue on top and bottom of the bridge?

I can send you guys photos of this major damage if you want..

Yours


lusthansa

[nate clark]

Here is how I deal with that:

http://fingerlakesguitarrepair.com/m...bridge-reglue/

I am not familiar with your make of guitar, but you will probably have to buy or make clamping cauls that are different from the ones I use in the Martin article.

[Ned Milburn]

In my repair business, I've re-glued several bridges. Important to the process is to remove all glue from the underside of the bridge and make certain the underside is perfectly flat. Then, you have to recondition the area on the guitar top where the bridge will be glued so it is also flat and forms a gap free fit with the underside of the bridge. For this, I use chisel (if necessary to remove finish that protrudes inside of the bridge area as is common on factory guitars) and a scraper - never sand-paper.

For gluing, I use Titebond 2. I know many builders, however, prefer hide glue for bridges.

You WILL need to clamp the bridge to the guitar top with long-armed clamps that fit inside the sound-hole and use cauls (or a single caul if possible and appropriate) to go underneath the soundboard. For the classical guitars I build, I have a special made caul with chiselled out grooves for the fan braces. You MAY be able to get away with only 2 clamps by clamping only the ends of the wings of the bridge, but sometimes it is necessary to clamp the middle of the bridge as well. Which ever clamping pattern you use, it is important to test clamp first to make certain the bridge, cauls, and clamps are working properly to ensure there are no gaps when clamped.

Remember, the bridge is going to skate and slide with glue on it when clamped. This can be controlled in several ways, one is by building up several layers of masking tape to form a "basket" (for lack of a better word) for the bridge to fit in so it cannot slide left, right, front or back. Advantage of this technique is that there is less glue clean-up from the top afterwards, but the disadvantage is that it is difficult (impossible??) to visually verify that your procedure is producing a gap free glue joint.

Although it seems like a simple task, there are a lot of things that can be screwed up without full understanding, and considering you will need to buy glue and clamps if you don't have them already, it may be more practical to bring it to your local trustworthy luthier to glue up for you. Shouldn't be too costly, either.

If you carry on and do it yourself, good luck. Post with further questions as necessary.