The Process of Repair

Repairing Juliet actually turned out to be easier than I thought it would be, thanks to eBay and my grandpa.

As far as parts went, things were pretty cheap.

A new bridge: $9.90

New pins: $7.90

A new saddle: $2.71

A set of strings: $2.28

Which totaled to a whooping $22.79

Well, I wasn’t able to find what I thought was a suitable glue until Tuesday. I think the neighbor I was borrowing the glue from called it “Super Nano Glue” or something. Well, it wasn’t what I expected. It was dry by that evening and it did seem suitably dry. So I went ahead and put the rest of it together. Drilled holes in for the pins. Adjusted the saddle which was just a smidge too small but easily adjusted with some paper. The only real issue I had was getting the strings in. Which was my own fault because I didn’t think ahead to actually learn about doing it before I went ahead and did it.

She was playing beautifully Tuesday night. But because the strings were fresh, they were out of tune again by Wednesday night. As I was tuning, I could hear this sharp crackling noise. The bridge was ripping off of the body from the tension of the strings. Which is just a warning to really research what type of glue you’re going to use before you use it.

Well, I dashed over to Grandpa pretty fast after that, mostly for the fact that he’s stocked up on power tools and all sorts of stuff. It was really a simple fix after that. I’d never seen a guitar with it’s bridge bolted on this way, but it didn’t really effect the sound or even really alter the look much. If anything, I kind of like the bits of shiny metal now.

The only thing I couldn’t really fix were the places where the finish had been stripped off and the larger whole that had been cut into the side. A smaller one that had been located near the bottom of the body was easy to fill with a chunk of cork from a wine bottle.

And honestly, she didn’t turn out to bad if you ask me. Beautiful even if you ask me.