Washburn bridge plate

[Diane Kauffmds]

This Washburn has severe belly bulging. I'm going to remove the damaged bridge plate, then replace it. I've put a sponge on the defective plate, to get it wet. I'll leave it a few hours.

I've made a template of the plate. I've bought bars of aluminum from amazon, 12"x2"x1/4" . I'm going to cut a piece in the shape of the plate, as well as for the top bridge area. I'll heat the plate shaped piece, to around 150°-160°, to heat the plate out.

Once the plate is removed, I'll heat both pieces of aluminum, gently, then clamp the plate shaped to the inside, and bridge shapes to the outside, to get rid of the bulge.

My client had the guitar in the shop a few months ago. I recorded the bulge, took measurements, and told him that it was most likely going to continue to worsen, and unfortunately it has.

So, time for the big guns!

Bit, I live for these complex repairs.

[Diane Kauffmds]

Interesting side note. I put the endoscope down into the guitar, to look at the plate. It has a rosewood plate or cap.

I never capped it. You can see where I drilled a small hole, missing the original hole for the piezo. Since it was in the shop a few months ago, wood has fallen out along the line of bridge pin holes. I think it was cracked and didn't show up a few months ago with the endo.

Background: After he bought the guitar, a year down the road, the bridge popped. Washburn glued it back on, but it popped again this past summer. He took it to a local music place, where a tech glued it. It lasted all of a day or two.

He got my name, came to me. I found almost no glue under the bridge. The belly was huge. I told him that I thought the plate needed to be replaced at the time. I did repairs, but didn't warrant them. He's not one for cutting corners. I as a rule won't. But I also know how much he has in this guitar, so I got it playing, and sounding much better. But that belly, which I photographed and measured, worsened.

That rosewood looks like it might be a cap. I suspect Washburn capped the plate, but didn't address the underlying cause of the belly. They should have replaced the plate. They screwed the pooch on this guitar, big time.

Not to worry. I'll do it right. But, in hindsight, I should have just replaced that plate. I'm trusting my instincts from here on out, without fail.

[Diane Kauffmds]

I've got the plate replaced. The original plate was 1/16" thick and laminated rosewood, spruce, rosewood. The rosewood was just an extremely thin veneer. There was no way the plate was going to hold. The rosewood has already broken away. Spruce is an inappropriate plate material for a steel string guitar.

I used solid rosewood, since apparently Washburn was trying to pass the plate off as rosewood. I realized after fitting the plate that I need to remove some tool marks. I'll sand the plate before I finish.

I used West Systems epoxy to glue the lamination on the top. The belly bulge is gone now. I had well over 3/8" measurement under the level before I started. You can see how it's come down.

I have a couple of spots where the finish has to be repaired. Although I taped and used a plastic shield, the epoxy got on 2 small places around where the bridge will be glued. I've already removd it and applied finish.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Good work Diane. I'm like you I want those surfaces even inside the guitar looking good when almost no one will ever see them.
Clever way to get that plate out!!!

[Diane Kauffmds]

Bridge is glued. I had to remove an area under the bridge to gain access to the area where the laminate top separated, which was 2 or 3 layers down.

After epoxying the laminate back together, and clamping it, I cleaned the area where the top graft goes, from any squeeze out, then made the graft out of red spruce for under the bridge.

I glued it in with titebond original, because I used titebond to glue the bridge plate an hour earlier. Thd bridge pin holes had wet titebond showing, so the graft with titebond will adhere to the plate glue. Not necessarily a must, but insurance.

That's been clamped for 24 hours. So it's time for the bridge. I've grafted areas under bridges before, never with an issue. But since I used the epoxy between layers, there's always a possibility that a bit may be on the edges of top, around the graft area. This is an odd batwing shaped bridge, so is the graft. As close as I tried to get it, there were a couple of gaps between the graft and top of around 1/32".

I want this bridge to stay on. I'm using hhg to glue it. I applied hhg around the edge of the graft, which would fill any gap. I then sprinkled some rw sawdust over it. I applied hhg to the bridge itself, clamping it into place.

It served to self-clamp the bridge steady while I clamped it. Then, I reheated the bridge. What I had was a very nice squeeze out, which was nicely mixed hhg with a little sawdust.

This bridge won't budge, I'm sure. It'll stay clamped for at least 2 days.

[Diane Kauffmds]

The Washburn is done. The owner mentioned that he hadn't been getting much sound from the under saddle piezo when the guitar was plugged into his amp. The guitar has a B-Band preamp.

The piezo bit the dust. B-BAND has a proprietary piezo. I could have ordered one from China. I have several round bridge plate piezo in the shop and the owner elected to make his system passive.

Using 3 disks, I soldered all 3 red wires and all 3 black wires together, so I could treat each set as a single wire. I used his jack and soldered each set to the appropriate jack wire. I always use shrink insulation on my soldered wires, so each set of wires are insulated and both sets are in a single shrink wrap insulation wrap on the Jack wire.

I tested the system several times, before install, after jack reinstall, before gluing the disks, and final test after everything was installed. It works great.

The guitar will get picked up tomorrow.

[rcnewcomb]

Using 3 disks

Was this a K&K or some other 3 disk pickup?

[Diane Kauffmds]

Using 3 disks

Was this a K&K or some other 3 disk pickup?

No. I had a bag of the round pickups sitting in the shop. I took 3 out, soldered all 3 of the black wires together, so they would act as one wire, and did the same with the red.

I took all of the B-Band wires out entirely. I used the existing jack with wire. I ohmed the wires on the Jack and the black (which is usually common) was the neutral. So I soldered the red to red, and the black pickup wires to the white on the Jack.

I just glued the pickup disks to the bridge plate.

Sounds like a lot of work, but honestly, it didn't take me but about 5 minutes longer to do this than installing K & K, or Journey pickups and it saved my customer money on parts. It's stuff I have in the shop.

The sound is great from them, just as good as K & K or Journey.

BTW, I found the Journey passive pickups, which are German made, for $50 on Amazon. Initially, I didn't like that they weren't as long as K & K's, making it harder to glue the disks. Then, I realized they have a 3.5mm plug, that unplugged from the Jack, to make installation easier. I actually like the Journeys more for this reason.

[Diane Kauffmds]

The Washburn owner picked up his guitar today. He's very happy.

[TEETERFAN]

I imagine he was happy, that instrument has been rescued to make music again! Great strategy and work. Thanks for another inspiring post.