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My top, for some reason, is sort of flat at the center of the bridge position. Do I need to sand the wings down and take a chance on them being too thin or glue/clamp the bridge and hope it will pull thinga into place?

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RJS

Here is the deal. “sort of flat” means not truly flat. If you force the bridge down during glue up and clamping then when the clamps are gone the areas of the bridge that were forced to make contact are now in sheer load. Meaning they are constantly trying to pull away from or deform the top. The most common structural failure that happens to guitars is bridge separation in part from this very issue along with the rotational force of the strings. My opinion is I want this joint to be as good as possible. Knowingly imparting undue sheer load into this joint seems counter productive to the goal from my point of view. Besides sanding the exact profile of the top at the joint into the bottom of the bridge takes at most 10 min.

That makes sense Michael. Thanks. Back to the sanding. Guess I'm getting lazy in my old age.

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RJS