The Bryn Production

Apologies to earwighoney for a rather terse reply on 19th inst. but I had just had a rather harrowing day at the workshop.  You've probably had enough of my warts (as in "warts and all") but there is no other way to characterise what was to have been the final day of the build.  I'll try to be brief:

I started off by locating the precise position for the bridge in my rather slipshod way as shown here,



, measuring 322.5 from the 12th fret slot.  I should have know things weren't going well when I found 3 slightly different positions each time I marked it.  I had the rule cramped to the fingerboard with one of those big springy peggy thingies (spring clamp) and, just before I took this photo, it chose to slip and slap shut against the back of the neck leaving a nice mark (which I haven't really dared to look at since).  Next I placed the paper template and marked the positions of the thin dowels which I needed to help stop the bridge from sliding around in the glue and which would be finally glued in position to help support the strain of the strings:



At this stage I just used pins to locate it (dry) so that I could cut the outline into the polish.  I also took the chance to bung up the holes with toilet roll to discourage the hot hide glue from filling them up and setting hard:



I outlined the shaped and had a good scrape.  So far so successful...



I've also drilled out the holes to one eighth of an inch by the look of it.  We're all set...  Now I know I've quoted Hoffnung before but nothing else quite sums it up;  "At this point I must have lost my presence of mind because..." I thought I should try to warm things a little so that the glue wouldn't chill too much upon contact - only a slight warming, you understand, with the hot-air gun set to "low" and kept well away it would be just like a summer's breeze....  Well the summer's breeze got a bit hot and blistered some of the shellac next to the bridge area.  This area, you'll remember, had already been finished.  I said some really foul things and decided to warm the back of the bridge well away from the newly polished guitar.  You may remember I made a caul to fit the back of the soundboard under the bridge earlier:



The caul was in place and the home-made cramp and bent-to-fit top caul were ready:



and the dowels were to hand, too.  I held my breath and glued....  Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that the warming of the bridge had very slightly bowed it laterally so that there was a tiny gap under each end which my caul was not dealing with.  A quick decision and off it all came before even that became a problem.  Cleaned off the glue and said some other jolly rude things and thought about the day's progress:  I had dented the neck, taken the finish off the top and bowed the bridge so that it no longer fitted.  One of those "three steps back" that I'm learning to take in my stride.  I'm afraid I just walked away and shut the door.

Then I was busy with birthdays and a day in London and what-not and then finally took a deep breath this morning and approached the scene of devastation again.

I cut back the polish - not quite enough by the feel of it though - where it was damaged.  I decided that two cramps would solve the problem of the bowed bridge so spent a couple of hours making another one.  Made sure I'd cleaned all the old glue away and then glued the bridge on.  Piece of cake really:





Nothing to it this guitar-making business.