Official Luthiers Forum!

A buddy of mine got a guitar (his first) used, online from certain center that sells guitars. It's a recent vintage Ibanez with a very figured top, back & sides, so I'm assuming laminate all around. I went over and was putting a set of strings on it, and since it had these brass(?) knurled bridge pins on it, I reached inside to see if there was anything unusual going on. I found what appears to be a hood scoop off an early 70s Chevelle:



What is this?? A home brewed Bridge Doctor? There's no evidence that there was ever any problem with the top or its braces. You can see what looks like at least one re-drilled bridge pin hole. It looks like the bridge plate was removed to install this thing. I think since it goes all the way back to the butt end (and aggressively glued there) it may have been an attempt at a sound enhancement device.

I'm probably not going to do anything with it beyond cleaning up the bridge pin holes. It's a $500 guitar and I can't do $300 worth of work on it just to make it a better $500 guitar.

What are your thoughts? He could get his money back for it since this guitar selling center has a good return policy, but he loves the way it looks and feels, and it really does play and sound ok for what it is.

Mostly I just want to know what this thing is.


Thanks

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"Real guitars are for old people, Mr. Marsh."

Eric Cartman

Gotta love it - sort of "the Bridge Doctor meets the Virzi Brothers."

Some folks are driven by bright ideas to do wacky things to their instruments. That interior shelf might make for some interesting times regluing or replacing the bridge - maybe regluing/replacement was already done previously and the top may have had some veneer delamination in the area. I've seen a number of those curly veneer tops in cross-grain failure from a combination of string tension, poor workmanship and glue failure.

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

Bridge Doctor/Virzi! That was exactly my thought. I love the amount of glue holding it in too!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

It's a double top........

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Ann Arbor Guitars

That's a factory original, pre-emptive, Bridge Doctor/Virzi, thing. I've seen em too. (unfortunately)

Looks more like dollhouse furniture made with a hot glue gun to me.

That is the weirdest thing I've seen installed in a guitar in quite some time.
Lotta mass to add to the box - way over-engineered if you ask me.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Should have a couple of picnic benches on either side.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Ho. Lee. Crap.

I can't believe I'm seeing that. No way would I have thought that was original equipment. I thought it was God getting back at me for kind of half way suggesting that I might put a Bridge Dr in an old Gibson LG-2. I didn't, I swear.

David, from what I'm seeing, that guitar looks identical to the one I'm working on. This one's an Ibanez EW20****. Is this a feature(!?) of this model? I'm just intrigued that a "reputable" company like Ibanez would put out something this cobbled looking with the super sloppy glue job (is that epoxy?) and the massive (esp. on yours) tear-out around the bridge pin holes.

I too, wonder just what this box is for. A bridge stabilizer? A good bridge plate will handle that. A sound enhancer? Awful lotta extra wood for that. A place to hide your weed? Maybe the best use yet.

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"Real guitars are for old people, Mr. Marsh."

Eric Cartman

I'd hate to drop my pick into the sound hole.
Might never get it back out.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

It's a bridge doctor with the advantage of being made from scraps underfoot on the shop floor.

You can save the wages of a cleanup crew if you just tack glue the offcuts to the inside of the instruments. Maybe even get away with a smaller dumpster.

Re. the "does weight matter" thread running parallel. You can argue the finer points but at some point..............

If was supposed to be a "sound enhancer", it wasn't working on the guitar on my bench. Probably needs a bigger one. Or two!

More "tonewood", right? Has to be better.

The more I thought about it, I wonder if it's because the design of these guitars was more about look than anything else. If they weren't real confident that the wood they chose to look pretty for the top would be structurally the best, they might want to reinforce it with a diving board and some table legs.

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"Real guitars are for old people, Mr. Marsh."

Eric Cartman

Wow...just Wow
Anyone have some vintage Ibanez sales literature that mentions this? I'd love to know how they were selling it. Maybe all those blobs of glue squeeze out were a "feature" as well