Bass Bridge Epoxy Repair

[Jon Page]

   We had a recent thread on repairing cracked bass bridges with 
epoxy. The question was raised on how much time a repair might take. 
I just completed a repair today on an old Acrosonic bass bridge.

   About five notes were affected - the treble-most notes on the bass 
bridge. Upon starting to tune the piano (she tunes every six years 
whether the piano needs it or not), I noticed the upper bass was way 
flat. Checked it with my Verituner and saw that the top five notes 
were about 30 cents flat. Looked at the bridge and saw that the 
speaking side bridge pins on those notes were standing up straight 
and a crack ran right through all the speaking pins on the top five 
notes. You could see that the strings had straightened out and that 
the cap had moved a bit.

   I removed the affected strings and the cap came right off and the 
pins were easy to remove. I spent about a half hour that first day.

   I came back a week later with my box of West System epoxy, their 
slow hardener and their High Strength/Density filler. I wet all wood 
mating surfaces with unthickened epoxy, then mixed in the filler to a 
peanut-butter consistency and applied that to all surfaces. Mooshed 
the cap piece in place and scraped off squeeze out. Pushed bridge 
pins back in with pliers. Cleaned up squeeze-out. Put a couple spring 
clamps on to keep all in place.

   Came back a few days later (today), put strings back on, pulled up 
to pitch, tuned piano.

   My on-site hourly fee is $60/hr. and I charged her $200 for the 
bridge repair (that included a $20 flat epoxy fee). So I guess I put 
a total of three hours into the repair (that included a half hour in 
my shop prepping (putting together a box of epoxy supplies, etc.). 
Plus tuning of course - so the total was $295.

   I though this was about the easiest and most straight-forward 
bridge repair I have ever done - usually they present some additional 
challenge.
-- 

Regards,

Jon Page
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