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What us the real life dry time for stringing up a bridge glued with HHG?

24.

I once strung a Guitar up to full pitch some 4 hours after gluing the bridge. That bridge is still holding fine. Of course it was on a very experimental Guitar, so hardly a disaster if the bridge popped off. 16 hours seems like an eternity in comparison.

I usually wait a couple of days. No science behind that. There is always plenty of other stuff to do. 24 hrs for sure.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Turns out 16 is fine...

Was the glue in the bridge pin holes gummy when you drilled it? Mine usually is at that time frame. I do put a piece of clear packing tape over the holes before glue-up.

Might not mean anything but that's one reason I wait longer. I like to see it rock hard.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

The holes aren't drilled all the way through, save for the outer e strings, which are filled will drill bits for indexing...

Good idea, Terry, I never thought of taping the holes. I usually like to wait longer than 24, but I figure at least 24. You never know down the line and I know that disturbing a glue joint will weaken it. Keeping HHG clamped for 24 is a minimum for me.

Neither are mine, any of them, I index with two 1/16" pins in the saddle slot. I put the clear tape over the top of the bridge pin holes so the hide glue won't run through them when I am applying it to the undersurface.

When the clamps and tape come off there is a little pool of glue in each hole where it was pushed up during clamping, that's the stuff that is still gummy after 12 hrs. I usually wait until it is hard before drilling the holes and putting any stress on the bridge. +/- 24 hrs is what it seems to take. I usually have a bunch of other stuff to do so I usually wind up waiting another day to string up but that is probably not necessary.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Usually bridge fit comes at the end of the day. So 24 hrs is at the end of the next day, so they usually stay unstrung for another night after that, so more like 30+ hours. Bit it's nice to know what the real life practical limitations are. I think by the time I finished with all the rest of the set up stuff (nut saddle cleanup yada yada) it was probably closer to 18.