The Hub

I had a bridge replacement in which the top surface (laminate) had been badly damaged during a prior repair.

The first picture shows the extent of the tear out, including one large area and many smaller defects in the top layer. The surface was cleaned of all the old glue and primed with dilute hide glue. A piece of poplar veneer was glued in the largest defect and a hot slurry of hide glue and fine poplar dust was spread across the rest of the surface (picture 2). After 24 hours the surface was milled flat and flush with a Dremel and router base (picture 3). The bridge is now glued and clamped; we'll see how that works in a couple of days. (I did also replace a narrow, split bridge plate with a generous maple plate.)

Question is, are there better ways to do this? Would it have been better to rout out the top under the bridge down to the middle laminate layer and veneer in a single piece? Are there other approaches? Thanks for any advice.