Bridge lift on $300 Ibanez

[YamahaGuy]

I'm handy with tools, but don't want to spend $100 on clamps to do a job once or twice in a lifetime. And I don't want to pay $100+ to get it done, and maybe done poorly by someone else. Should I act now or see if it gets worse? Open pore finish, guitar is regularly humidified. Probably exposed to cold more than once. (See pics)

My questions:
What kind of glue?
How do I heat it to remove it without buying a special $30 tool? I have soldering irons and wood burner/engraver
What kind of cheap clamps could I use?

[BT55]

You do not have to spend a lot of money for this job. You need....

TiteBond Glue
Harbor Freight “U” Clamps
Clothes Iron

Watch some YouTube videos on Bridge removal / reinstallation. It’s not rocket science and if you’re good with your hands you should be good.

[charles Tauber]

I don't use clamps for bridge gluing for pin bridges. I use two, 3" long, 3/16" machine screws (bolts) with washers and wing nuts. You need to make gluing cauls for the interior - to fit the bridge plate - and the exterior - the contour of the bridge. (That needs to be done regardless of what you use to clamp the bridge.) Drill holes in both cauls where the 1st and 6th string pin holes are.

Put wax or wax paper on the surface of the interior caul that will be against the bridge plate - you don't want to glue the caul to the bridge plate from excess glue. With the interior caul in place, the bridge in place and the exterior caul in place, you can insert the machine screws through the holes. Use washers against the outside of each caul. Use wing nuts against those. A pair of pliers can be used to tighten the outside wing nut while you hand-hold the interior one. (A screw driver used in the head of the machine screw can slip with undesirable consequences on your guitar top.) With both tightened, that provides the primary clamping force.

Each wing of the bridge can be held down with a set of two opposing wedges made of wood that are wedged between the wing of the bridge and the outside caul.

I remove bridges cold, but that isn't everyone's cup of tea. You can use a clothes iron to provide heat, but protect the top from the heat. A thin paint spatula can be worked into the space under the bridge. Note that if it is solid wood, book matched top, half of the top will be worked from one direction, the other half of the top will be worked from the opposite direction. Just pay attention to where the spatula is going under the bridge. If it starts to dig into the top wood, or the top wood starts to come up, work at it from the opposite direction.

You must remove the old glue from both the bottom of the bridge and the surface of top. This can be done in a variety of ways, including using a scraper and/or a chisel used as a scraper. Sanding will tend to produce a convex surface on the bottom of the bridge so that it won't mate well with the top.

Even though the materials only cost $10, you might find that the $100 is well-spent to have a professional do it. Depends on how much you like this sort of work and your skills at it.

[M Hayden]

Charles isn’t kidding about protecting the top, either. A couple of layers of foil and cloths can help avoid burning and such, and low-tack tape can help avoid glue smear on the face.

Internal cauls can also be made with friendly plastic, a thermoset material that gets soft when it’s dumped into boiling water. I usually make a mass of it, put it on a plywood substrate, put plastic wrap over the exposed plastic that needs to be shaped, and mash it up under the bottom of the bridge. It makes a surprisingly good internal caul, and I can reshape it when I need another one.

[mirwa]

If it’s a cheapie and you don’t have many tools. Go hillbilly on the repair.

Drill a single hole in the bridge behind the d and g string, countersink it, squeeze some titebond glue in under the bridge and then put a countersunk bolt in to your drilled hole.

Let it sit overnight, continue playing, no tools, stays cheap and works fine, if your adventurous enough, don’t put one in the middle of the bridge butone each side behind the e strings, try to avoid drilling through any braces inside.

Let’s understand this is not the right way of doing something, and if this was done by a luthier and you paid for the work, shoot them... but to keep a cheap guitar going, why not.

Steve

[jonfields45]

That bridge is very likely not glued around its perimeter. The actual glueing surface might be fully intact and this sort of clearance is fairly common. Given it is not a priceless collectors item, I would wait and see.

[redir]

Originally Posted by charles Tauber

I remove bridges cold, but that isn't everyone's cup of tea. .

Hey Charles how do you do that? I'm guessing it's the same way that I used to do it and which was a method that came right out of the Martin Repair book. A few whacks with a wide chisel in the right places can remove a bridge clean. I used to do it that way and most people seemed to think it was crazy. I don't recall ever having any more issues with that method then removing it with heat.

Just curious.

[charles Tauber]

As you described, with a wide chisel, sometimes with the assistance of a thin spatula.

[YamahaGuy]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

That bridge is very likely not glued around its perimeter. The actual glueing surface might be fully intact and this sort of clearance is fairly common. Given it is not a priceless collectors item, I would wait and see.

Thank you. I was hoping that may be the case. I will watch it the next few weeks. If it gets worse, I will be tackling the job over spring break.

[snow creek]

I removed a bridge and reglued it back on for under $2.00. I used a pastry knife heated on a kitchen stove and slowly worked it under the bridge. Worked pretty good. Then I glued it back on with two bolts with wing nuts and a flat piece of wood. The bolts went through the pin holes with the flat piece of wood on top. On the sides I simply wedged in wood to hold it flat. Again- worked out pretty good.
Of course I dont know shiz and the guitar was at that point unplayable so I had nothing to lose...