I did my first bridge removal and reglue on my Guild D125. The bridge was lifting a little on the treble side and when I bought the guitar I had to shave the saddle a bit to lower the action. It became a liitle bit of an obsession to keep monitoring if the bridge is lifting anymore. I finally decided to do it after lots of Youtube research. The whole process was a great learning opportunity. I heated the bridge with an iron and took it off. I was surprised at how little glue was actually applied. I even think they might have used superglue.Anyway, I clean the surfaces and reglued it with wood glue and clamped for 48 hours. In the end there was a a big improvement in the action. I found the action too low after restringing and just popped a new saddle in and the action was perfect... just a tad over 2.5 mm on the 12th fret.The string break angle is good. I feel the bridge eventually would have popped off. Anyway, aside from a few very minor scratches, the guitar splays better and is holding up fine after a couple of weeks. I have to say I learned lots about glues and clamps.
Successful first bridge repair
- Thread starter netspirit
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davismanLV
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That's awesome and I think it's great when people just say, "You know today seems like a good day to learn how to reglue a bridge and fix my guitar!!" and then they do it!! How did you get the old glue off the soundboard? Did you mask it off and use a scraper? Happy for the photos!! Good job!! 
Brucebubs
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Fantastic job - any reason why you used the big C clamp as well as a bridge clamp?
Just to make sure the middle does not flex. saw someone else do that in Youtube.
davismanLV
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I was gonna ask questions about the clamp as well. The bridge clamp is a thing and then the C-clamp is a thing. Why?
Got it!! You answered.....
Got it!! You answered.....
Something I saw someone use in Youtube. Looked like a great idea. Cost less than $20 for the clamp. A professional repairman wanted about $170 to do the job. He sounded very knowledgable, but I couldn't afford it. Only thing I would do differently if I did this again is to use Titebond woodglue instead of Gorilla brand woodglue as it seems to have a better reputation. Just glad I did not use Gorilla glue..that would probably have been a disaster.
I was surprised how very little glue was originally applied. I just sanded what little glue there was and scraped some of the finish that the bridge was glued onto. I did mask it with masking tape.That's awesome and I think it's great when people just say, "You know today seems like a good day to learn how to reglue a bridge and fix my guitar!!" and then they do it!! How did you get the old glue off the soundboard? Did you mask it off and use a scraper? Happy for the photos!! Good job!!
davismanLV
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Yeah, well if you got all the old glue off then you're gold. Titebond wood glue is meant to glue raw wood to other raw wood. Old glue to old glue not so much, so as long as it was clean and raw, then you gotta good bond. And you had an extra saddle sitting around to pop in there once the bridge was back and flat again? Amazing how out of whack they get huh?
cutrofiano
Member
That would be the by far more interesting part in pictures (plus a close up of the wood of the top and the bridge after having been seperated) than the clamping of the bridge back on ;-)
If the heat was enough to release the glue, then the glue was not cyano/superglue. i know of no factory (certainly none of the factories that have or are currently building Guild brand guitars, and I include the Chinese factories) gluing on bridges with cyano/superglue. My belief is that they don't want to glue it down with cyano/superglue because if there is a bridge issue, the bridge lifting or coming completely off will take a lot of soundboard wood with it.
I agree... I didn't think about taking pictures until I got to the clamping part. Believe me, I was pretty scared of messing up. Especially the iron part.
I wish I had presence of mind to take pictures at that point.It was a very thin glue that was clear. Appplied unevenly.Not much of it. I just sanded it off from both the bridge and the soundboard.
HeyMikey
Enlightened Member
I’m with you netspirit. Sometimes it’s simply not convenient during the process to take pictures when DIY. Especially when attempting something for the first time, and when you wished you a extra set of hands!