MIMF

I was just wondering if anybody glues their bridges to the top before fitting the top to the sides? It seems to me that this would make clamping the bridge much easier. I realise that accuracy of placement would be an issue and the saddle slot would have to be routed with the bridge in place, but up to now I have found glueing the bridge to be a rather tricky part of the build, although my latest efforts have gone better than previously. Just a thought!

So ... you know exactly where the bridge needs to be before the top goes on?!
That is some fine Kentucky windage my friend.

I've been dong this a while now, and ... I don't miss the bridge plate - and I've even put braces where the pins have to land on either side, but there is ALWAYS some wiggle (usually left/right relative to the center line - don't tell my customers!)

I rout the saddle slot after the bridge is glued in place, which I do after the guitar is assembled and polished. I do this because even then I want a little "wiggle room". I think gluing a bridge is much less problematic than precisely locating it's position on an unassembled and unfinished guitar body.
Unless it was creating a production bottleneck I don't think it would be worth the trouble. Learning to glue the bridge properly on an assembled guitar will also allow you to reglue the many bridges that friends will ask you to reglue after they find out you work on guitars. <g>

One of the idiosyncrasies of falcate bracing is that (on steel string guitars) the braces pass between the bridge pin holes, and there is very little clearance. So it is actually much easier to drill the bridge pin holes and then glue down the braces between them, rather than risk drilling through a CF covered brace once you've glued the bridge on after finishing. This means that the bridge position is set from that time onwards. It's not a big deal because there are any number of ways of making fine adjustments so that everything lines up, including routing the saddle slot once the bridge is on. So whilst the bridge could be glued on before the top is glued down, it never is, because finishing around a bridge is a lot harder than learning how to glue a bridge on after the box is closed.

Lots of people (including some with no great depth of experience) have made falcate braced guitars now, so it's not as if any super-special talent is required to get the alignment right.

It is my understanding that lute bridges were (and are) usually glued on before the soundboard is glued to the bowl. Not much room for a clamp through those ornate soundhole "roses", and I guess vacuum clamping wasn't that common back in those days

I certainly would be easier to clamp it in the wrong place before the top is attached!

Rodger Knox wrote:I certainly would be easier to clamp it in the wrong place before the top is attached!

Roger that, Rodger !

If you glue a lute bridge slightly off, you just move the frets. <g>