Hey gang,

I'm resurfacing after a LONG forum slumber to ask for some gear help. I don't know the exact terminology of the problem, so more informed gearheads, bear with me and please enlighten me!

I pulled my strat out of its case this weekend to find that the body where the bridge anchors is broken. This is now the SECOND time this has happened, both times while simply sitting in its case.

This first photo is from last year, summer 2015. You can see the bridge bolt nearest the volume knobs was pulled towards the neck, chipping off the surrounding finish, and shearing the wood of the body right along the grain forward towards the pickups. This warped the whole bridge forward and made the guitar unplayable. (Ignore the more dramatic long crack and bandaids on the rest of the body - those are strictly superficial. Definitely a bummer as well, but not a problem for playability)

I finally took it in to get replaced this past spring, and the guitar felt to be back in working order, but the problem just resurfaced again! Looking into the guts, it looks like the wood and bolt were realigned into place, and refinished with a healthy amount of glue (or something). This held for about five months, and only and handful of times spent playing (Less than ten. I haven't been using this guitar much lately).

Does anyone think this can be salvaged with a more robust fix? Any recommendations? Or is this a fatal break? I'd hate to part with this guitar - it's my first electric and was my go-to guitar for all Deadbeats gigs and recordings, so it's pretty sentimental. But is it doomed? Any thoughts (or condolences) are appreciated

I doubt it was repaired correctly the last time. It's totally fixable. Depending on how bad the break is, either finish breaking it and glue/clamp the original piece, or route it and replace a larger chunk as Jake said.

And I would go with a six screw bridge as well. It will distribute the string tension better.

"You can't tell where you're going if you don't know where you've been"

As someone who built musical instruments for a living, I would question whether it's worth it to you to go through fixing the body versus just buying a new body. I don't know what that body is worth to you, but strat bodies of varying quality can be had for great prices online. You said part of it is warped, is it worth fixing if the angles aren't right anymore?

I would likely dowel the the post holes and go for a 6 hole bridge option. Routing the body, cutting another piece of wood, gluing it to the body, and doing the finish work wouldn't be worth it to me in this situation since you could likely spend less time buying an unfinished body and finish it, while also getting a better piece of wood that isn't patched up. Going the 6 hole route would be an easier fix whether you dowel the holes or not. If you don't care about aesthetics (given the guitar currently has bandaids on it), then I would get a vintage style 6 hole bridge, make sure it fits, drill holes and call it good.

-Eric

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what is the glue used for first reparation ? epoxy ?
wood need to be glued with wood glue only ,epoxy tend to be brittle and broke when you have force on it
to save your body first need a proper reparation
step one pull out the stud in steel after replug the hole with a dowell in hard wood redrill reput the stud and remount it
but as i see in the pics more work needed cause the wood have move around the hole
is the pickguard and trem will hidden the reparation ?
if not it is more trouble need to make a patch really adjusted and a refinish this part of the body ,if yes rout the part before the hole to put a big patch of new wood (same as the body better for hidden the reparation after cause you can taint it and varnish it also)
made the patch really ajusted with the rout ,glue it with tidebond and tighten it wih clamp ,redrill the hole and it will working like before
wood glue is stronger than wood ,all trouble with glue are in 90 % of case a bad preparation or pieces bad ajusted ,or bad use of glue (not wood glue to glue wood for exemple),the seam need to be fine as possible in certain case you can hidden them really well if you have patch with the same grain it will be really hard to see it
if i will do this i pull out all the black mark and put a new piece like this ,with more thickness than the stud

Last edited: Sep 21, 2016 11:12:06

Not an uncommon break at all on these. Looks like it was drenched in superglue at some point. With this being the case I'd be inclined to something along the lines of what Jake suggested if you wanted to maintain a 2 point bridge. It'd be tough to thoroughly clean out the cyanoacrylate from the previous repair, compromising any further gluing attempts.

Wooza and other strat lovers,
It's not too much of a surprise to me that your post(s) cracked the wood. There isn't much wood there..you have a rout for the trem block and a rout for the bridge pickup. The posts are right in the middle. You hit the bar and all that stress from the strings and springs is up against two chintzy posts. Wood isn't solid metal - it's porous in comparison. So -as they say - something has to give. This rarely happen on a Bigsby (or Mosrite)- the stress forces are against solid metal - which is not porous like wood.
Let's see... you could get get a more dense ash body -whoopsies - now its too heavy.
So convert to 6 post trem - at least that will distribute the load a bit more.. or get a G&L.. they use larger trem posts (Leo probably saw what I see)
Such is what happens to ill thought out "contraptions" like strat trems set into a resonance/sustain robbing body cavity.
Other than that, it's a great guitar.

I didn't invent the laws of Physics.. I just try to live by them..
J Mo'