A curious thing came in to the workshop today. It is a parlour guitar from the 19th century. I have so far been unable to identify it, or date it, so email me if you think you know more.

It was in a state of reasonable repair, considering current thinking is it may be older than 1850. The back had come away, and the bridge had disintegrated. This was likely to be because Steel strings had been used. A previous owner had got the guitar up and running by fitting an archtop tailpiece, therefore just using the old bridge for its crowning point.

Needless to say, the current owner wanted it restored to as close to its original setup as possible.

The first task was to glue the back. I delicately glued the back to the kerfing inside the guitar, avoiding glue squeezing out inside the guitar. I needed to position my clamps very carefully so as to avoid any damage to the top and sides.

With the back of the guitar repaired, I had to look at the bridge.

The crack in it ran between each of the bridge pin holes, and split the bridge in half. It was clear that this bridge would never be repaired to the point where it was strong enough to retain the strings under full tension.

The only thing to do was pop the bridge off, carve a replica out of ebony and glue this replacement back on.

The first thing to do in this situation is determine the glue used. With an instrument this old, it is likely to be hide glue, but caution should be used, as you never know what someone might have used in a repair in the past.

Fortunately, the damage to the bridge meant that it had lifted in places, and it was clear that it was hide glue. Hide glue has great tensile strength, but will shatter under a sharp lateral force. In other words, a sharp tap on the side of the bridge shattered the glue, and the bridge came off without any damage to the extremely old and very delicate spruce underneath.

Next update: Carving the bridge from ebony.