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This one is a square neck slide guitar from the late '30s, it belonged to the owner's grandfather and he wanted it made playable. I've got everything put back together except the bridge. This bridge has more tear-out than I've dealt with before so would appreciate some advice on the reglue.

I've scraped some but have not removed any of the loose wood fibers. My thought was to prep with some thinned hide glue then warm everything up, glue with HHG, and clamp.

I used a Thompson belly reducer which flattened the the bridge area reasonably well.

The extra holes were covered with MOP and are for bolts. I'm reasonably sure it came that way from the factory as I've seen photos of others with MOP dots in the same place

Would appreciate any advice.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

A pic with the bridge the other direction would have been better, it would be easier to see how much of the spruce was still on the bridge compared to what was missing on the top. Your plan sounds very reasonable to me. I have been using fish glue for these myself these days, no need to heat stuff up. I would advise the owner not to use some of the high tension tunings like dobro G. That is what may have led to this in the first place.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Thanks Brian, I will go ahead and glue this up with fish glue. The guy that owns this is not a serious player so I think he'll be ok with a low-tension tuning. I think I'll put a set of D'Addario flat top lights on it.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

All I have is 292g. Dang, now I have to make a decision again - ha.

Thanks guys for the advice, much appreciated.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

That is not significant tear out. I would clean off both surfaces to fresh wood and glue her up.

Thanks everybody. I just cleaned it up, used thinned fish glue to bind the lifted fibers on the top, and then glued with fish glue. I've always used HHG on bridges but decided to try fish glue on this one. I've used fish glue for just about everything else and Brian got me to thinking "why not?".

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

John Hall turned me onto fish glue last year and it has become my main repair glue for almost everything.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

That's all I used on this one to reattach the back and braces - now the bridge too. I did use titebond on the binding. Thanks for the advice.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

So this one's done and has been strung up for a week and seems to be happy.

Bridge came out good. Yes, I put the bolts back in since it came from the factory that way an put new MOP dots on top.



I tried the StewMac Bridgesaver on this one and it worked very well. This guitar would not have been worth replacing the bridge plate. This photo shows the original bolts and also the inserts from the bridge saver - string slots are cut, the bridge pins are unslotted.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"