Archtop repair

[rocket]

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A customer has bought this arch top in with an ill fitting bridge and also a damaged top. The instrument was built as a righty but has been altered to a lefty, the current bridge is a very poor attempt by somebody and even without the damaged top has never fitted properly. The instrument is parallel braced and i suspect the original bridge was a two piece with a bass and treble foot, i suspect the depression in the top was caused by an impact to the original bridge which in turn has forced the belly down just inside the brace on that side.
The customer wants me to fit the bridge properly and also see what i can do with the damaged top but doesn't want to over capitalise on what is really a low end guitar.
Just wondering if any of the fixit guru's in here have and any magic wand solutions without pulling this one apart?
Rod.

[jeffhigh]

Perhaps drilling a hole or two under the bridge footprint to allow pulling up the area with a cleat underneath using strings and tuners

[charangohabsburg]

What Jeff said.

Use a rigid caul, (actually a "pull-up cleat"), lined with 1-2mm balsa wood to prevent it to dig into the top wood.To stabilize the crack use thin spruce cleats that are flexible enough to adapt to the arched inner top surface. 0.5 to 0.7 mm should do the trick. If you think such a thin cleat is not strong enough for this kind of guitar top you can add a second cleat on top of the first one. For gluing the cleats use the same caul you used for pulling up the sunken part of the top, but don't forget to line it this time also with adhesive tape to prevent getting it glued to the top.

When stabilizing a crack I align the grain of the cleat at an angle of about 25° to the crack.

[Mark McLean]

Yep, I think Jeff has the right idea. The Don Teeter method of using a cleat on the inside pulled up hard using a wire (plain guitar string) through a fine hole in the top, and tensioned with a guitar tuning machine. Under the bridge footprint you would get a great cosmetic result. Here are a couple of youtube videos demonstrating the method (the second one is fairly long - the important bit is in the last 2 minutes).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcAPZ3oxi3Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gjhTYHRtMg