Replacing a
Gibson adjustable bridge
Martha had this classic Sixties Gibson B-25, with the plastic bridge and the porcelain saddle. She liked the size, and the small neck of that period was also good for her. We've all seen these guitars—they were deployed on many of Gibson's (and Epiphone's) flattop models—but we've often had a hard time hearing them. To put it diplomatically, this bridge was not Gibson's finest moment. The bridge is
injected molded plastic, and is held down by four
pan-head sheet-metal screws. The saddle is porcelain, its
height adjusted by screws that rest in studs set into
the top. It must have seemed like a good idea once,
but all the adjustable-bridge Gibsons, even the
all-wood ones, sound much better with a simple bridge
with a well-fitted bone saddle. There's no question
that the thing to do is lose this whole plastic thing
and put on a new real wooden bridge with a bone
saddle.
Note to everyone, right now: Alas, I am so slammed with work I can't consider doing this job. My fond hope, in putting this page up, is that other people can glean enough info to take it on themselves. Which means, in most cases, journeyman luthiers who have the tools and basic skills. So, the first thing to do—before taking the old bridge off—is to check the intonation as it is. If the high E is spot on, which is usually the case, you have a reference for where to put the new saddle in the wood bridge. We'll go into that on page two here. Once that's sorted out, it's time to get rid of the old one. Start with the saddle. Out it comes. Good riddance.
Lugs are in the upper right of this photo: This is actually the inside of an
LG-3 that had originally had a wooden adjustable
bridge. Someone slapped a replacement bridge over the
spot without removing the lugs or even the washers
from the bolts under the pearl dots, which explains
the yellow glue squeezeout. A truly dumb additional move. The
lugs are real sound-suckers. Get them out!
Then you put the adjusting bolt back in the lug for a moment, and use a pair of end nippers and a block of soft wood to lever the studs carefully out of the face. Easy does it...out they come. Now you have this little mess: A lot of weight. And a lot of holes that need to be filled before you can go much further. It still has lacquer where the bridge was - the difference in color is a suntan line. Step One is to cover all the holes on the inside. Sorry for the shadow
here, but what I have is a thin maple patch big
enough Since the new bridgepin
holes will precisely line up with the old ones, they
needn't be To glue this patch in properly, you need to make precise marks on the bridgeplate patch that you can see from outside through the holes. Always doing a dry run makes sure you have it right when you actually glue it. Since the top is old and a bit bulged, this patch will need to go down with a cork-faced caul. They sell this stuff at hardware stores for covering bulletin boards. Here's the bridgeplate patch double-stick taped to the caul which is in turn taped to a big C-clamp. It's attached off-center for a reason. Note that the marks are nice and prominent, so they are visible through the holes in the top. Note:
if you were doing a bridgeplate patch on a more
normal guitar, you'd
use one that was only big enough to cover the bridgepin
holes. The point of this larger patch is to maintain
a broad even inside surface to support good clamping
and gluing. You apply the glue after you do a dry run, right? Right. Now put the above rig in through the hole until the marks (see them?) line up with the holes, like this: The caul is thick, not just for strength, but because you want to make sure it's going in without the clamps hitting braces or anything else. Use a mirror and a light to check inside. Then you clamp it like this: OK, now you take it
all apart, put the glue on, and do it again.
You can now see why the first clamp is off to one
side—there's a second clamp. Before the actual glue-up, I always put a layer
of paper towel or newsprint inside the guitar to catch
any glue drips. A patch of waxed paper under the
outside caul is not a bad idea either, in case a bit
of glue squeezes up.
Now we have this. As
mentioned, it still has lacquer on it, and lots of
holes. But at least the holes have clean, closed
bottoms. At this point, I use the masking tape to define the precise edge of the backside and ends of the bridge, for later reference. As mentioned, you have to fill the holes. I use spruce dowel (ex-violin soundpost) for the eight smaller ones, and two layers of spruce - some larger dowel and then a hand-cut disc - to fill each of the lug holes. A bit of spruce gets laid into any chipped-up places too. You want this, in the end, to be a smooth surface. Then I level the
filled holes with a chisel, like this:
Here's another look at it.
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