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There has been a lot of talk about how hard it would be to remove a bridge that had been epoxied on. I tried it yesterday. Because of all the talk here I was quite concerned about it. I used a 150 watt light and shielded the top from heat. After about 15 minutes of heat to about 170 F I was able to wedge a thin spatula in and remove the bridge without issue. It was very easy.
One thing that might have made it easy was that it was a koa top. I think spruce or cedar would be a little bit more of a delicate operation.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Nope! I removed one from a spruce laminate top with a steam iron ...came right off!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

I've removed a few that were pretty easy also, but keep in mind that there a many, many types of epoxy on the market. While some of them may be great for these types of applications, a lot of them are not. Once you find yourself dealing with the wrong kind, you'll know.


Jay

Yeah, epoxy joints are about a bajillion times easier vs yellow glue joints

Which ones are not OK? How do you tell before using it.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

All the ones I've seen formulated for woodworking will release in the same range as titebond. There are a lot of specialized epoxies that are much more heat resistant. You can usually find specs at the manufacturers web site or with a call to their tech dept.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

What Kent said. A lot of the time you can just read the fine print on the package, and heat resistance ratings are sometimes pretty prominent on the packaging. There are actually epoxies rated for patching iron cylinder heads and patching cracks in your concrete driveway.

Over the years I've found a few guitars previously repaired with some of these. The only way I found to defeat it was chemically, and it wasn't fun.

Jay

Edit: These products are normally Methylene Chloride based.

Hammer and chisel method works well...Mike

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