Thursday, August 19, 2004 . . . .

Well, where do I begin . . . . to tell the story of another dumb mistake . . . . the sad, sad story of what made my poor heart break . . . . the steps I had to take to make it finally come out right . . . . where do I start ? ? ? (sung to the tune of "Love Story") (I know, I know, the rhyme isn't quite right --- but I was doing so well in the first part, wasn't I?????)

ANYWAY. . . .Here's the story of what ensued since I wrote last:

Sunday & Monday, August 15-16 . . . .

I leveled and polished the finish (12 coats) on the guitar, using all the 9 Micromesh grits, then 3M "Finesse-It" and Meguiar's #9 and #10 (plastic polish). Lookin' good so far:

Monday night . . . .

I now had to remove the finish below the bridge and fingerboard extension locations. The way I do it is to use paint stripper and very carefully scrape away the stripped finish, neutralizing the surface afterwards with water. That came out well:

I glued on the bridge:

(By the way, the white blob you see is a clamping caul made of "Friendly Plastic," little plastic balls you melt in hot water and then form into whatever shape you want. When it cools, it hardens. It can be re-melted and used over and over again. Neat!!!)

I glued on the fingerboard extension:

 

Okay. . . .now here's where the story becomes sad . . . (take out your hankies):

In clamping down the bridge, SOMEHOW (and I'm not sure how --- I was quite careful) the bridge shifted a tiny bit!!! Eeeeeeek!!! By the time I discovered it later, the glue was already setting up. I felt heartsick. In retrospect, I realize I should have used locating pins to ensure the bridge didn't do any shifting as I clamped it down. Anyway, here's how it shifted:

 

So . . . . here was my dilemma . . . . do I leave it as it was (unless you looked really closely, it is visually imperceptible) and try to fix the intonation by filing the saddle to modify where the strings hit the saddle? I decided against that, because my saddle was not wide enough to do it properly, given how far the bridge had shifted. And, even if it were do-able, it would bother me that the bridge was not perfectly aligned.

So, my only other alternative was to remove the bridge (which is scary because it is something I've never done before) and then repair any finish that might be damaged (that part doesn't scare me as much).

I quickly went online and ordered a silicone heating blanket for the bridge (which I'm still waiting on), went and bought a couple of thin palette knives from a local art store, and did a bit of practicing (using a little mini-iron I found at a fabric store, to heat the bridge) on a junker guitar I have, just to get a feel for how long it might take the glue to soften with heat, and how to use the palette knives.

So, now it's Thursday and I'm still waiting for my heating blanket to arrive. In the meantime, I have been doing various other things, such as dressing and polishing the frets, installing the end pin and strap pin, installing the tuning machines, and doing some basic shaping of the nut and saddle.

Stay tuned . . . . once my heating blanket arrives, I'm sure I'll have much more to tell you. I'm not feeling so bad now. . . .

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