I took pictures of this but I guess they're too big to upload. I have a J 50 with a lifted bridge in for re-gluing. I know that the Martin and Gibson styles of building dreads differed slightly but this seems egregious. It's a J 50 and if I had to guess I'd say late 60s. My dad has a J-45 that's very similar. It has that weird bridge with the Rosewood saddle and the height adjustment screws. On to the question...
I took a look in the box as I always do just to verify that regluing the bridge is all we're doing today. I made an interesting discovery concerning the bridge plate. It's not touching the XBrace. And as far as I can tell it looks to be about 3/16 thick. Normally my bridge plates are half of that thickness. It is touching the first tone bar similar to some small Martins. I've worked on. It's not attached very well. I can stick feeler gauges under there. It looks to me like somebody repaired it and didn't know what they were doing. They probably figured that the bushings for the height adjustment screws were there to keep the bridge plate intact and then maybe put a little glue in there for good measure.
I am not familiar with the differences between the two bracing schemes as I said earlier but I'm pretty sure that the bridge plate should be butted nicely into the X Brace, am I correct? It would explain why this guitar doesn't have much of a response but I see other reasons for that as well. For instance, that terrible bridge design.
Thanks!
-Aaron