Someone said that making instruments is the constant effort of making a mistake and fixing it. I remember how freaked out I was on my first bass when I made a mistake, now I consider it a mental puzzle that needs to be solved - more than likely solved during a long bike ride (like I took this morning).
I was trying to think of a way to pin the bridge in place before gluing, I had a few ideas, but decided that it wasn't really necessary. I really didn't want any holes (however small) visible from the top. I am not a smart man sometimes, it really is necessary to pin this somehow. I'm gluing two flat surfaces to each other with a nice viscous liquid (glue) in between them, of course it's going to float a bit.
I thought I could (and did) control this. I made pencil marks on the face of the bass to ensure it was lined up. What I didn't consider was that I would need to use a block of wood on top in order to get pressure on the bridge, none of my dad's many clamps were long enough to clamp the bridge from the edge. Once that board was in place it was really hard to see where the lines were. I thought I got it pretty much dead on (ok it looked just a hair off). When I pulled off the clamps I found that it was off by 1/8", ugh. The string slots were way off and when I put my test strings on the E string was way in and the G string was close to the edge of the fingerboard.
Ok, so time for some editing.
I drew the line for where the new bridge slot should end in order to be centered again, I guess I could have gone back at it with a router, but there is very little flat area on the top so I figured it would be next to impossible to make that work the first time trying it. I've never used the pin router bit in my Dremel, but that seemed like it would be the perfect tool if I could control it. I did a few tests on walnut and got proficient enough to feel confident on the bridge itself. I used the router base that came with the Dremel - not even close to a precision piece of equipment, but if you only take a little at a time, it works fine. It's also very small, so it worked well on top of the limited flat surface I was working with. One quick tip when using something small like this to do some really fine work - put on a LED camping headlamp, it's great for putting bright light where you are looking without using up hands or trying to get a lamp in the right spot.
After a few minutes with the Dremel I got the slot long enough so it was centered on the strings again. I then cut the ebony in half (harrowing!) and cut a small piece of walnut to make the string slot material wide enough and glued the three pieces together. I think it looks ok, it will take a few days before it won't remind me of a mistake, but good enough recovery I think. I flipped it over so the existing string slots are on the bottom. I have another piece of ebony, but if I can use this one now I can leave the other one for my next mistake. The ebony I'm using is the cut off from the fingerboard, so it's only so wide.
The other thing that happened is that the slots for the individual strings were no longer lined up to the holes where the strings come through. I considered widening each slot individually to see if I could center them again. Due to the fact that the bridge is now mounted it didn't look like it would be too easy, instead I decided to just make the angle go all the way across. Again, it will take some time for me to forget this was a mistake cover up.
All in all I'd say it looks good, is it better than my original vision? I don't know, I'm entirely too close to this thing. I was hoping to glue up today, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. I probably should cut string slots and test it again before gluing, just to make sure the bridge getting glued on didn't hamper vibrations through the top. If it did then I'll take away more of the bridging underneath.
I need to straighten out those holes, they weren't perfect before, I figured I'd get strings on and work with a rat file to make them line up better.
