Repairing an Acoustic Bridge Plate

[drathbun]

I know this isn't a Gibson, but it is an Epiphone and this is my go-to guitar forum. Further, this information might be helpful for some of you with older guitars that have this issue; chewed up holes in an old bridge plate.  This can become a right, royal, PITA when the ball-ends of your strings won't stay hooked under the bridge plate and either pop your bridge pin across the room or just give you a very buzzy and dead sounding string. 

This Epiphone AJ210CE VS was a castaway because of a finish crack down the center seam of the top and around the bridge. It also had an extremely chewed up bridge plate and the low E string ball-end would not hook under the plate and constantly pushed the pin out.  This was caused during manufacture when the bridge holes were drilled without a caul under the bridge plate to support the wood and it tore out chunks of the plate. This has happened on Gibson guitars as well in my experience. The guitar was also extremely dried out and shrunken. The fret-ends were protruding and the top had caved quite a bit causing the finish crack. I re-humidified the guitar over a period of about a month. 

A stop-gap measure for keeping the low E pin and string in the guitar was to cut a small piece of the low E string and thread it through the hole in the ball-end and crimp it so it doesn't slide out. That extra girth made the string catch. Not a perfect solution as you have to thread the string from the inside and up through the hole. Another PITA. 

The proper solution is to replace the bridge plate. This is out of the question for a guitar worth about $400 Cdn in new, perfect condition. I am just trying to make the guitar playable as a knock-around, campfire guitar.

There is the "Plate Mate" solution from StewMac. The "Plate Mate" is a small, flat piece of brass with holes drilled for the bridge pins. It glues to the bridge plate and reinforces it so the ball ends will hook. It is an elegant and inexpensive solution. However, at $25.18 US plus $16US shipping to Canada, that comes to $54.02 Cdn., which is also out of the question.

So I found a cheap solution. I went to Lee Valley Tools and found a small brass plate called a  "Plate Handle Escutcheon" which was the perfect size.

Before I ordered it, I mapped out the dimensions on a piece of paper and laid it out on the bridge to ensure it would work, used the bridge pins to pierce the paper in the right places with the right diameter and checked there was enough clearance inside. 

Then I bought the plate and drilled the holes with a drill press.

Then it was just a matter of adding some gel-style cyanoacrylate glue and using the bridge pins to line the plate up and use the high and low E strings with a little tension to hold the plate in place while it dries.

The guitar should be completely playable now. It cost $5.40 Cdn and took an hour of my time.

This could be an easy and inexpensive repair for any of you with this issue.

Cheers!

 

[MorrisrownSal]

What an awesome post. Really smart. I wonder is there an even thinner after market material with less mass that can hold up just as well?

by the way... the one attribute of the new Martin Modern series that I like is the carbon fiber bridge plate.  That just seems sensible.

[62burst]

A luthier once installed a PlateMate on a guitar I had- it did pick up the volume of the guitar, but it also added a metallic edge to the sound. . . I ended up taking it out. It would be a cheap enough thing to try on a guitar that was on the quiet side, though. Yes, Sal, the PlateMate is a bit thinner than Doug's solution, but in line with how little he's got into the guitar, that fix will do I suppose, but I wouldv'e avoided the permanency of the CA- The PlateMates have an adhesive no stronger than a post-it note; string tension keeps them in place, and they're  a reversible mod.

Bridge plate replacement really isn't necessary for something like this, StewMac has that strange device that cuts a half sphere, and an identical wooden piece gets glued in. But Dave at Brother's likes the sawdust & superglue fill of the hole & then he re-drills for the pins. The mix gives a nice hard surface for the ball ends to rest.

Edited May 27, 2019 by 62burst

[duluthdan]

https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Tools_by_Job/Tools_for_Bridges/Plate_Mate.html

[E-minor7]

Splendid job ^

21 minutes ago, 62burst said:

But Dave at Brother's likes the sawdust & superglue fill of the hole & then he re-drills for the pins. The mix gives a nice hard surface for the ball ends to rest.

A good first solution. 

[j45nick]

There are at least two other solutions. Stew-Mac sells a device the drills out a "dish" in the bridgeplate at each hole, with a corresponding piece of wood to glue in place. Then you re-drill the pin holes.

Or, Ross Teigen just saved the original plate on my "new" 1950 J-45 by filling the damaged areas with tinted and thickened epoxy, then re-drilling and reaming the pin holes. The results were perfect, at a fraction of the cost of a bridgeplate replacement. And it saved the original plate.

[Dave F]

Sometimes a thin piece of rock maple over the existing plate will work

[drathbun]

Again the BEST solution is to replace the bridge plate and every other solution is on a downward scale of cost vs value of the guitar. This guitar was given to me and owes me nothing. So $5 to get it playing and working properly is a bargain. 

[drathbun]

 

 

 

2

8 minutes ago, j45nick said:

There are at least two other solutions. Stew-Mac sells a device the drills out a "dish" in the bridgeplate at each hole, with a corresponding piece of wood to glue in place. Then you re-drill the pin holes.

Or, Ross Teigen just saved the original plate on my "new" 1950 J-45 by filling the damaged areas with tinted and thickened epoxy, then re-drilling and reaming the pin holes. The results were perfect, at a fraction of the cost of a bridgeplate replacement. And it saved the original plate.

That's a good solution also. I know I would screw it up with my arm in the sound hole and a bunch of epoxy on a stick. Just a recipe for disaster! 🙂

[drathbun]

I just tuned it up and played it. It sounds pretty good for what it is. I'm travelling by car across the country in a month or so. I might take this with me. I was thinking of taking my Taylor GSMini, but I like a full-size guitar. The GSMini is good for day trips.

 

[j45nick]

24 minutes ago, drathbun said:

That's a good solution also. I know I would screw it up with my arm in the sound hole and a bunch of epoxy on a stick. Just a recipe for disaster! 🙂

That's why I had Ross do it. If it's good enough for a $75,000 D-28 'bone, it's good enough for a lowly 1950 J-45.  I think he charged all of about $75 for that repair as part of a larger list of repairs including a neck re-set and brace re-glue.

He did replace the bridgeplate on my other 1950 J-45, but the one he replaced was one of the big plywood plates from the late 1960's. There was no other fix for that one.

A bridgeplate replacement can be fairly traumatic. More often than not, there is a far amount of grain tear-out under the top when the old plate is removed.

[BluesKing777]

Good work, Doug!

 

The Plate Mate has extra notches under the holes to perhaps help latch the string?

 

https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Tools_by_Job/Tools_for_Bridges/Plate_Mate.html

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

[drathbun]

1 hour ago, BluesKing777 said:

Good work, Doug!

 

The Plate Mate has extra notches under the holes to perhaps help latch the string?

 

https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Tools_by_Job/Tools_for_Bridges/Plate_Mate.html

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

 

You are correct sir! I didn't attempt that little feature. 🙂

[Hall]

Great post!  Much appreciated, re: time and trouble.  I have a Plate Mate from StewMac on  an old Norlin SJ and it does the trick, but your own plate looks much more effective.   Well done. 

[SirNed]

On 5/27/2019 at 7:08 PM, Dave F said:

Sometimes a thin piece of rock maple over the existing plate will work

This has worked for me, too.