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My client brought me her late Father's guitar. Not sure what happened, but suffice it to say, it needs a new back.

Instead of using heat or moisture, I removed the old back by routing it off.

I new it was coming in, so I already joined a back, installed the black back strip, and installed the center reinforcement strip. I wanted to see the shape and size of the original braces before cutting and installing them.

The bridge was lifting, so I took advantage of the back removal to glue the bridge. The bridge popped right off with a chisel.

After taking the bridge off, it was a wonder that it hadn't come clean off much earlier. The entire outside 1/4" edge wasn't glued. On top of that, lines were scratched through the finish, ostensibly to give the glue something to hang onto, instead of scraping the finish off.

I scored around the bridge with an xacto knife, and cleaned the bridge footprint with the inlay tool.

I used hhg to glue the bridge. After clamping, I reheated it to ensure that the hide glue was hot enough to stick well. After I started doing this a few years ago, I've not had a glue failure.

Back is on.