Bridge Doctor variation

[ksdaddy]

I'm skeptical of stuff I guess, particularly when it comes to repairs. If your rings are shot, do a motor job, don't go dropping pellets into your spark plug holes or dumping mysterious liquids down your crankcase. There an't no free lunch.

 

I don't know when the Bridge Doctor came out; early 90s I'm guessing. In '94 I made my own, to repair a severe basket case Suzuki 12 string. I have no idea why I went to the lengths I did to rehab that one, but it got done. My guess is that my version of a BD was overkill and was heavy. I've never bought one, I've never held on in my hand.

 

The opportunity to do another one presented itself lately. An Academy came to me with a badly distorted top. Normally I would look into making a new bridge plate but this guitar is all plastic and aluminum except for the bridge. No bridge plate or conventional braces. Okay, I'll buy a Bridge Doctor for $30. Except then I read they aren't meant for Ovation type guitars so I made my own (again). It seems to work so far:

 

http://www.angelfire.com/me4/ksdaddy/brdr.html

[TommyK]

Sehr interesant.

 

I'm still trying to fingure out the mechanics of how that all works.

 

How'd you get the top off? I heard that nothing short of C-4 and the concomitant destruction of the top was inevitable.

[ksdaddy]

Didn't take the top off. You're right tho.... C4.

 

The pics showing me holding the contraption are using a destroyed 1974 Balladeer as a prop. Sad prop. Top was already destroyed, bowl even showed signs of Townsendesque activity, headstock corners chipped off, and the coup de grace was a neck twisted like a licorice stick. No redemption for that guitar other than the tuners getting used on a period correct Balladeer and the bridge has been saved. Otherwise it may become a knick-knack shelf.

 

As to the mechanics, the string tension has basically twisted the bridge forward. This device pushes in exactly the opposite direction from underneath. Consider this hastily drawn pic:

 

 

The strings (red) are pulling the bridge forward in a twisting fashion. The contraption counteracts this twisting motion and in fact corrects any distortion of the top that was already there.

 

It's really not much different than if you could somehow magically flatten the top out and add a brace, other than it does the flattening for you and it's adjustable.

 

I really don't notice much difference in tone. Actually none that I can state for sure, I just can't very well do an A-B comparison. I had one person say to me in a somewhat passive aggressive fashion that "I certainly wouldn't do that to an expensive guitar!".

 

Well, duh!

 

If it were a Gibson or Martin I would be looking at replacing the bridge plate or some other radical surgery. But it's a plastic guitar with no bridge plate... ya do what ya gotta do..... and it works.

[jefleppard]

how are you able to tighten the nut/rod after the top is re-glued? just reaching inside the sound hole after the top has set?

[ksdaddy]

I just reach inside with a 7/16 wrench. I think the store-bought ones have screws that are easily accessible through the sound hole. It's not bad to do, just a little bit of a pain to get my tree trunk forearms in there.

[TommyK]

OIC, now it makes perfect sense.

 

Do me a favor KSDADDY, with the left over Balladeer bowl...

I've often mused that a "O" bowl would make a good potato chip server. Next time you have a cook out, use the bowl as a bowl... and take pics.

[onewilyfool]

KS....if you could make that so it could be adjusted from the outside, some kind of slip threaded adjustment in the tail piece. Hex end, double threaded tube, fix the tube at the tail piece, then you could adjust the rod back and forth as needed....cool idea...I always felt that it would hamper the top from vibrating fully, what is your experience?

[ksdaddy]

I thought about incorporating something with the end strap button, a truss rod like in a banjo pot, but remembered Ovation's lower strap button is held into the bowl with something like a wall anchor. I could have done it I guess, if I wanted to rip out that anchor, but figured I'd work around it.

 

Oft repeated caveat: I'm not hip on doing stuff like this but it was a borderline rescue mission; an otherwise healthy and great sounding-playing guitar that needed a non-conventional rehab.

[TommyK]

Might need to figure a way to keep the rod from turning while you adjust the nut. Maybe drill a cross hole through in the foot of that Doctor England Bridge Nudger. Through the blind hole and the rod, just big enough for a 9d finish nail. that ought to do it.

 

[ksdaddy]

Don't laugh. I had an '82 Subaru GL wagon (yellow of course!) and one wiper transmission died. I drilled it out and pounded a roll pin in there, ground it down with a dremel tool and reinstalled the wiper arm.

 

Gawd, I loved that car. I swear I would have married it.

[TommyK]

I ain't laughin' :)