Bridge gain delamination

[Ron Nossaman]

I've done a couple of these and haven't had a bit of trouble with them, but
I'd still sell  it as an "attempted" repair, rather than a "guaranteed"
one. I loosened a few strings for access to the bridge top, drilled and
countersunk (countersank? <G>) a couple of screw holes centered in a
unison, and in the blank spot next to the plate strut. I blackened the
countersinks with my Sharpie (I used to have a Flair for that kind of
thing, but my enthusiasm for defending that line dried up at about the same
time the Flair did), injected Titebond in the holes until I made a mess,
and escalated the mess by inserting 1 1/4 sheetrock screws and drawing the
crack together, observing squeeze out. Being careful to cut the countersink
just deep enough to leave the screw head flush, or just below flush with
the bridge top, I haven't bothered to fill the top level and make another
trip. As I explained to the customer, I'd rather have the repair visible
for two reasons. The first is that the second trip to trim, flatten, and
blacken the filled repair won't make the repair any stronger, while it WILL
cost more money, and the screw head isn't that obvious under the strings of
the unison anyway. The second reason is that if the repair should fail at
some future time, I'd like to give the poor devil who's stuck with it a
fighting chance to see exactly what he's up against without having to
discover it the hard way in the process of doing much more damage than
would have been necessary if he had all the information up front. I have
always HATED finding buried screws with formerly edged tools, but that's
probably just from my personal edged tool fetish.

So far, both the explanations and the "fixes" have worked.

Ron N