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The bridge has come unglued on my last two builds after being strung up for a day or two. As I usually do, I waited 48 hours after gluing the bridge before stringing the guitar. I've never had this problem before, so I looked at what changed in my building process and the only thing I can think of is that I'm now using a new pedastal buffer to buff out the guitars. I removed the bridge mask before buffing and I think this is my problem. Before gluing the bridge however, I scraped the area clean with a razor blade and thought that I had removed any buffing compound binder that may have been left behind on the bare wood. Has anyone experienced a similar issue? Is there a solvent that I should clean the area with that will not harm a nitro lacquer finish?

Thanks in advance.

Chuck

Buff and THEN remove the mask. You are impregnating WAX into the wood pores. You can use Naphtha to clean it but I doubt anything will get deep into the pores to get the wax out. You may have to route our a few thou of wood and set the bridge in a pocket. Sounds scarry but it will work if your top is thick enough?

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Yeah, you've essentially succeeded in thoroughly waxing the wood, effectively doing the same thing as one may do to mask a surface from being glued. I think Tim is right, and you're looking at least at some serious scraping (chisel as opposed to razor), or possibly routing to clean out the contamination.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Thanks, guys that's what I suspected. I just tried taking a tiny sanding block - 3/4"x3/4" - and sticking some P120 sandpaper on it and sanding carefully across the grain. It kicks up a surprising amount of dust so I'm going to give sanding and wiping with naptha intermittantly a try before resorting to the dremel and trying to rout. If it doesn't work, then I'll go with the more risky method.

Chuck