Attaching Bridges

[robbie o'brien]

Which method do you prefer - traditional clamps or vacuum?

[tippie53]

I have used both methods and I have to admit I do prefer the clamps so I can clean things up , but both systems work. It is like , what is better a car or a truck. Clamping time with vacuum is faster .

[watergunn]

I have only built nine so far. But I use a homemade jig for gluing mine.

It has worked great for me.

I attached a photo of it in use.

[Darryl Young]

I like your burst WG!

[mjmeehan]

My method looks a lot like watergunn's except I use clamps on the wings. It works well for me and I'm getting ready to use it again on #7.

[Ben-Had]

I use the method WG showed. I do however have a vacuum system and several other clamps for it. My question is:

To vacuum clamp the bridge there can be no drilled holes through it, correct? I position my bridge for gluing by drilling out the e string holes. Is there a way to do that and then seal them for vacuum clamping?

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Hi Robbie, nice to see you posting again, been a long time,

I have only used the Fox bridge clamp that Stewmac sells. I think it was from them. It works very well, same principle as what WG has made for himself. Seems much simpler than a bunch of clamps, to me.

Kevin

[rienk]

I use the method WG showed. I do however have a vacuum system and several other clamps for it. My question is:

To vacuum clamp the bridge there can be no drilled holes through it, correct? I position my bridge for gluing by drilling out the e string holes. Is there a way to do that and then seal them for vacuum clamping?

Tim,
Yes there are several ways, depending on how elegant and/or complicated you want to get.
Probably the simplest way is to make yourself some pins that have no heads on them, and simply insert them into the holes. If your vacuum is of a decent capacity, a small amount of air leak is not going to matter - especially if you are running the vacuum the whole time you are waiting for the glue up. Obviously, do a test run first.
If necessary, wrap a piece of teflon tape around the pins before vacuuming.

Another crude way is to put pins in that don't really go past the bridge plate underneath, and put a strip of duct tape over the bridge plate holes. I have used this to cover holes in a 9'x13' steel flat plate we have used as a make shift vacuum table, and it works great - and some of the holes are over 2" in diameter! Of course, you may have to worry about glue residue.

Thus, a better way is to get a piece of foam rubber large enough to cover your bride plate holes (say about 2"x4") and simply use masking tape to hold this in place inside the guitar. Once you apply a vacuum, on top, this will get sucked down to stop any possible leaks, if there are any - though you may have to reach inside to help seal the edges.

BTW, I don't know if anyone has used this tip on gluing bridges, but we often put masking tape precisely around the perimeter of where an item is going to be glued down, to protect the rest of the surface from resin squeeze out under vacuum. I would think this is very similar to how you would tape up for removing the finish for the bridge in the first place... maybe just leave it there while you vacuum? Just a thought.

[edit] by the way, remember to make the temporary pins out of something that won't get glued into the bridge!

[rienk]

I have only built nine so far. But I use a homemade jig for gluing mine.
It has worked great for me.
I attached a photo of it in use.

Here's another idea we use in another industry. If you have a part that you regularly glue down (in this case, a bridge that is carved the same for each guitar), You might want to consider making your own custom caul around it by casting some sort of material over one (that has been properly protected, so that you don't damage it).

We regularly cast silicone or high density urethane over parts which contour exactly to the part. Then, this can be used underneath your top clamping plate, so that even pressure is applied literally to the whole surface of the bridge - which in theory should give you a better joint by more evenly distributing the glue pressure.

Of course, this only works if your bridges are fairly consistently made (by a CNC or duplicator) but these materials can both be flexible enough to allow for some discrepancy between hand copies.

Again, just an idea. YMMV

[Ben-Had]

Yeah, I like the idea of pins. These would work pretty good I think:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Speci ... t=3&xsr=28