Bridge Plates

The bridge plate and bridge are a guitar’s most important brace.

A guitar’s bridge plate health is paramount to that guitar achieving its best tone and surviving the years of string tension.

Typical problems with Bridge plates are:

1. Chewed up: the ball end of the string isn’t sitting correctly against the bridge plate/bridge pin and damage occurs to the plate.

2. Cracked: If the bridge plate cracks it should be replaced if it is a decent guitar. For cheaper instruments money can be saved by gluing the crack and adding a thin veneer over the entire original bridge plate for extra stability and strength.

3. Unglued: Some part (usually the back) of the bridge plate has become unglued. Repair depends on if it is also cracked/chewed up, and what glue was used to glue the plate. If Hide glue was used (on Vintage instruments before the 1960’s) reglueing is easy. Modern instruments may need the plate to come out, surfaces cleaned then the plate can be reglued.

4. Too Thin: Some vintage instruments (e.g Kel Kroydon, made by Gibson in the 1930’s) have an extremely thin bridge plate (0.040”) which don’t stand up to string tension. They sound great, but are not made to last (although they have lasted since the 1930’s). The problem with too thin bridge plates is that the top deforms and bellies, top braces become unglued, the bridge rotates and comes off. In short, all the top problems are a domino effect from too thin a bridge plate (There might be other problems of course). Remedy is to either replace the original bridge plate or “skin it” with a thin veneer to add thickness and strength to the bridge plate to typical workable thickness of 0.085”-0.090”-0.095”- 0.100” range depending on guitar size.