Gah! Help me with my X170T please!

I changed the stings on my beloved X170T, and now it's all buzzy and doesn't feel right. I've changed the stings before without incident.

This time however, the bridge came off, which it hadn't done before. I was under the impression that it was pinned, but I'm not so sure now. It looks like it may have been glued? Here's a pic:



It looks and feels like there's some "goop" where the ends of the bridge go. It's hard on the body.

My archtop experience is very limited, having cut my teeth on electrics in the 70s and pointy guitars in the 80s. Was this a pinned bridge and I broke the pins? Was it just glued? Am I just an idiot? Will it ever stop snowing? Can you help me?

GAD said:

Was this a pinned bridge and I broke the pins? Was it just glued? Am I just an idiot? Will it ever stop snowing? Can you help me?

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Generally, archtop bridges are held in place by the pressure of the strings. When I change strings, especially if I take them all off to clean the fingerboard, I use some blue painters tape and fasten it at the ends of the bridge then use a pen or pencil and draw lines where the feet are. The blue tape will not damage the finish as some masking tape will, especially if left for a few days.
Brad

If it was pinned, it would be most likely that tiny holes would have been drilled through the top of the bridge on each side and then into the top of the guitar. Then tiny brads inserted. But there would still be holes through the bottom of the bridge. Does your bridge have drill holes? If not, it wasn't pinned.

I'm not a fan of pinning or gluing the bridge. Doing so cancels your ability to adjust/correct the intonation for different gauge string sets.

Also, if you installed a lighter set of strings this time, that could make it buzz and require some changes in how you have it set up. You may need to add relief to the neck via the truss rod or raise the bridge wheels.

Thanks all. I put 11s on it which seamed to have helped the buzzing, but the guitar still doesn't feel right. The guitar is no where near as bright sounding as it was before. Here are pics of the edge of the bridge and the finish marks beneath.





The finish is not smooth. The marks are bumps. It looks to me as if maybe superglue was used which caused the finish to "melt" a bit. Now, the bridge doesn't seem to sit flush on the wood, and makes me suspect that this is why the guitar isn't as bright.

Could that be accurate?

This is sort of heartbreaking for me. I love this guitar.

GAD said:

This is sort of heartbreaking for me. I love this guitar.

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Hang in there GAD. I'm sure one of our Guild Knights will ride in on his steed and save the day...

One of the items that I found causes bridge buzzing with a Bigsby bridge is that sometimes teh bridge is not pushed down far enough onto the height adjusting wheel. If it is not resting on the "bottom" it will buzz. Use your fingers or ball of your hand to push it down "hard". When doing so listen to hear it jerk down into place. I often had trouble with buzzing on bigsby bridges until I found out that sometimes the posts arn't always parallel which leads to teh bridget not seating firmly on the adjustment wheel which leads to a buzz or eresonance.

M