Recently a 1941 Martin D-18 that had seen better days dropped in for some bridge work — the bridge was splitting on both treble and bass sides in front of the saddle. Since some rather strange repairs had already been done (screws in the bridge covered with plugs, and some strangely-filled chips), I was reluctant to remove and replace it since it was well glued. So, I did what I call some “outside the box” repair work.
I remember something Tj Thompson said during a presentation at the Northwoods Seminar many years ago; he said two things that struck a chord with me: “Often you need to think outside the box on difficult repairs”, and “If you want to be a better repairman, be a better person”. Many in the room didn’t understand that last quote, but it stuck with me, and I found it to be true.
1) The bridge was splitting like this at each corner of the bridge.
2) I set up the StewMac saddle slotting jig at an oblique angle matching the area of the spits and routed right through the split areas removing the bad wood and creating clean shelves to accept new wood.
3) I did that at both the treble and bass side splits.
4) I measured the angles of the shelves . . .
5) . . .and cut two wedges from Brazilian rosewood that had a fair grain and color match.
6) Next I used “Danny West”* tape (golf-club grip-wrapping double-stick tape) to hold the wedges as I band-sawed away much of the unneeded wood leaving less wood to carve away.
7) I glued the wedges on with West System 105 epoxy and 207 hardener. A simple caul made of wood pressed the wedges into the shelf . . .
8) . . . and two StewMac 5” sound hole clamps and a wood hand-screw clamp did the job.
9) For shaping the wedges I used a spoke shave and chisel to start . . .
10) . . . and Flexcut carving tools.
11) As I got closer to the final shape I again used my “Danny West” tape to stick a block on the wing in case my gouge slipped (no pun intended).
12) Flexcut tools are awesome!
13) When I went to lunch some old geezer came in and started carving on the bridge. I kicked his ass and threw him out.
14) I thought this fix came out quite well!
*I call this tape Danny West tape because he was the source of it for me. It’s now my favorite double-stick tape. Thanks, Danny!