I’ve touched on these before when I discussed stringing an acoustic guitar and mentioned how important it was to ensure the string ball-ends were well seated. Super-quick recap: If the string ball end isn’t pressed good-and-proper against the bridge plate, the string can actually start to saw into the plate. Over time, the bridge can get hacked away. Give it long enough and this can compound, damaging the guitar soundboard and bridge too. Check out that previous article on ball ends and bridge plates for tips on how to prevent this happening.
Well, much of the time the solution is to replace the bridge plate. This means removing the current plate, making a new one and installing it. That’s a pretty involved job. I’ll write about it if I remember to take photos next time I do it*. Obviously enough, ‘involved’ frequently translates to ‘expensive’ and, in a lot of cases, replacing a bridge plate can be something best avoided.
While this sort of patch has its place where instruments or budget does’t allow a replacement, it’s not my preferred route. An acoustic guitar depends on a vibrating soundboard for the bulk of its tone. If you glue what is, effectively, a second bridge plate over the top of the current plate (probably more than doubling the overall thickness), you risk altering the instrument’s voicing. This work can be done more sympathetically, of course, but I’ve seen some terrible jobs, with ridiculously thick hunks of wood glued on.
Axemasters Brass Bridge Backup Plate
We start off with a bridge plate that’s been hacked up. Then we use the first of the bridge saver tools, the plate cutter.
The tool is installed inside the guitar body. Sorry for the blurriness of the internal images, by the way. They’re actually reflections in my inspection mirror.
Around the outside, the tool is threaded into a brass base so it’s snug and a small tap-style handle turns the cutter. The cutter threads itself deeper into the base on the outside while, inside, the blades cut a dish-shaped hollow in the bridge plate.
Acoustic Guitar Repair Pricing
This tool is the mirror of the plate cutter. The first cuts a dish in the bridge plate (think of that as the negative shape) and this cuts a positive shape to fill the space.
Getting the plugs into place is a little fiddly but much less so than removing an entire bridge plate. The most important thing to remember is the line up the grain on the plugs to match the existing bridge plate (plate grain direction should ideally be perpendicular to soundboard grain direction).
Because of physical space issues, it’s only possible to glue three plugs at a time so they’re installed in two stages. After the glue dries, it’s an easy job to clean up the repair with a little sanding.
Crawls Backward (when Alarmed): 1970s Martin Guitar Bridge Plate Removed
All of this is a much easier and less invasive job than replacing a bridge plate completely. It’s also head and shoulders above simply glueing another patch-plate over the existing one.
It’s worth mentioning the ‘Plate Mate’. This is a piece of sheet brass with an adhesive backing that can stick to a bridge plate. It’s pre-drilled for a couple of common string spacings. Stew Mac sells these as a quick fix for a worn plate and that’s fair. There are many instruments whose value might not justify a replacement or patched bridge plate. These have their place but, if you’ve a nice guitar, I’d err towards patching as a more sympathetic — and just ‘nicer’ — repair.
There are some players who like the Plate Mate as a ‘preventative’ measure, installing it so the bridge plate doesn’t get worn in the first place. To that I’d say that (providing the plate is sound and well installed to start with), proper restringing is probably all you need.
Learn About Guitar Bridge And Tailpiece Installation And Repair
*I did a bridge plate replacement recently and only remembered to take a photo of my warming a bridge plate iron on a hotplate — d’oh!
**I’m not sponsored by Stew Mac, by the way. 😉 I mention them often because they have the best research and product development out there. Some of their tools have saved me tons of money, time, and stress and I’m happy to nudge people their way if I think others can benefit too.This week I had the pleasure of working on a vintage Gibson LG-1 acoustic guitar, owned by the fantastic musician Seth Walker. These were considered beginner guitars back in the day (the LG stands for “learning guitar”), but now they are starting to command increasingly higher prices as their perceived vintage value rises. It’s not surprising, as they are really great sounding instruments – but this one in particular had a somewhat mushy tone, which I attributed to it’s worn out bridge plate. The bridge plate is a piece of wood (usually spruce or maple) that sits under the bridge on the inside of the guitar, and helps support the bridge and top against the constant pull of the strings. Bridge plates tend to wear out over time, as the metal ball end of the guitar string rests directly against it, and slowly digs into the wood. This results in the string sitting higher and higher in the bridge, so that eventually the loose windings of the string near the end are resting directly on the saddle, like so:
This particular guitar had a very mushy sounding low E string, which isn’t surprising seeing that the string isn’t properly contacting the saddle. Using a mirror and a flashlight, I inspected the damage from the inside – it was looking pretty rough:
Bridgeplate Thickness Advice?
This particular bridge plate was worn out enough to warrant a complete replacement, but I opted to repair it rather than replace it completely. Why? Well, this is a vintage instrument, and I believe that they should be kept as close to original as possible (unless I’m specifically asked to modify them, in which case all bets are off). Replacing this bridge plate would not only require an entirely new plate, but would since it’s bolted down through the bridge, I would also have to drill out and replace the pearl dots on the bridge that hide the bolt heads. I felt that replacing the bridge plate would be too invasive, so I decided to repair the existing plate.
To repair the bridge plate from within, without removing it first, requires a specialized set of tools. This one is one of my favorites: my Stewmac Bridge Saver. First, I use the this bit to carve a dome out around the damaged area of the bridge plate from inside:
The bit is reverse threaded, and is turned by hand against it’s threaded counterpart on the top of the bridge, which slowly brings it up into the bridge plate below, carving away a dome shape:
Guitaring Passionately: Featured Restoration
Next I use a special bit designed to make dome plugs corresponding to the shape I just cut into the bridge plate, like so:
These dome plugs are then covered in glue, and pressed and clamped into the bridge plate, and allowed to sit over night:
With the plugs firmly in place, I drilled holes through them for the strings to pass through, then sanded the plugs level and cleaned up any excess glue that had squeezed out. Now the ball end of the strings have a solid anchor point, and won’t pull up too high in the bridge anymore. Now the strings correctly contact the saddle:
Repairing A Damaged Acoustic Guitar Bridge Plate — Haze Guitars
The mushy tone is gone! With a fairly simple, non-invasive repair, this guitar has gone from just ok sounding to having a robust tone. This thing sounds really, really good – it’s too bad I have to give it back!
I am a bassist, guitar tech, and founder of Strange Guitarworks. When not working on guitars, I create experimental music under the moniker of UFO Death Cult, utilizing microtonal instruments of my own design.Today I’d like to shine a light on a problem that many steel string acoustic guitars have, yet most people don’t notice: worn out bridge plates. The bridge plate is a flat piece of wood that sits inside the guitar, underneath the bridge, which helps support the top and is where the string’s ball ends anchor. Over time, the metal ball ends wear through the bridge plate, causing the strings to sit a lot higher in the bridge. Oftentimes, the looser windings at the string’s end wind up resting on the saddle, causing intonation problems, uneven action, and tonal weirdness. While the bad news is that a lot of acoustic guitars suffer from this malady, the good new is that it’s a rather simple thing to repair, and isn’t that expensive to fix. Check it out:
This guitar belongs to my friend Kip, who drove this guitar all the way from Tyler, TX to get fixed up. A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how I repaired his bellied top and bridge, which turned out beautifully, but his guitar also needed a bridge plate repair. The tell tale sign is that the strings were sitting very high in the bridge, and some of the loose windings were
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