Guitar bridge cave body inwards. Is it lost?
 

Hey all, so basically my guitar bridge started coming off shortly after purchasing the guitar (unfortunately I'm a different country, so taking it back to the shop is not a possibility), so I decided to unstrung it immediately.

A couple months went by with the guitar in it's case until I was able to acquire the materials to fix the guitar (taking it to a Luthier would cost more than the guitar itself). So yesterday I set to work and remove the bridge to find that it's caved the body in and, in response to that, some of the wood is slightly cracked.

Now, I have no idea if it would be easy to straighten the body again (it isn't terribly bent, just enough so that I can't place the bridge on a flat surface anymore), or if that would make more cracks in the guitar and it would ultimately break. Is the guitar salvageable?

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/DqwSghJ

Model is a Tanglewood TWCR D.

Thanks for your help

Welcome. Your link says the image doesn't exist or has been removed. Are you sure this is correct?

Sorry
 

Sorry, I've tried a couple of services to embed the image but I can't seem to make it work.

Here the Imgur link anyway:

https://imgur.com/IZpSCPM

Here you go...
https://i.imgur.com/IZpSCPMl.jpg

Thank you!
 

Thank you! Hopefully people can get a better idea now.

Red circled is what's caved in, btw

Excess rotation of a bridge can occur if the top has loose braces, loose bridge plate, top too thin, bracing too thin, over humidified, strings too heavy to name but a few.

The first thing to do to it is too identify why you have excess rotation and then the repair is based around that.

Its not uncommon to steam flat the top and add bracing to prevent it from re-occurng

Steve

I think it's largely because the detachment of the bridge went unnoticed for a while and that made the body sink in.

So, steam it and then add bracing could be a way? I suppose I can DIY that. How long do you think the guitar should be allowed to rest with the bracing before I try to re-attach the bridge?

If you flat clamp with steam then just leave it clamped overnight.

If everything else is good, then fit bridge and continue playing, if it rotates again, then you missed something.

Steve

Sorry, I'm not too versed in guitar-specific tools. By flat clamp, you mean a regular deepthroat clamp with some form of the wooden plank at the ends?

Thank you

This is how belly reduction is performed. You can make similar cauls yourself. The key is heating them to soften the glue. You need clamps to reglue the bridge. The same clamps are used for belly reduction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3usc-kMKc4

Amazing, thanks so much! Will get to work :)

From the photo, it appears the reason the bridge lifted was because of the amount of finish under the bridge's footprint. It appears the top is plywood. While there are a few bits of the outer layer of veneer missing between the bridge pins, it is unlikely that there is a crack in the top, given that it is plywood.

To assess the amount of "caving in", a photo showing the top from the side with a straight edge placed on top of the area would allow a better assessment of the issue. Likely, it isn't excessive and the bridge area can be cleaned up and the bridge reglued.

Prior to regluing the bridge, you'll need to remove the excess finish from the top under the bridge. You'll also need to remove any remaining glue from the bottom of the bridge, while keeping the bottom surface of the bridge flat.

The bridge can be clamped while the glue dries using wooden cauls and two 3/16" bolts through the two E string bridge pin holes. A few wooden wedges can be used between the upper gluing caul and the wings of the bridge to hole the wings down while the glue dries.