1. This customer's bridge was coming off the top of the guitar and was cracked. I talked him into replacing the bridge instead of repairing the old one. So I heated up my bridge iron and got out my spatulas and went to work. The key is to work slowly and let the heat loosen up the glue. This one came off without too much trouble.
 

2. Once the bridge was removed, I carefully scraped off all excess glue and sanded the "footprint" of the bridge to clean it up for new glue. Easy enough, but when I placed the replacement bridge over the area and noticed that the old bridge had a larger footprint than the oversized replacement bridge. So, the only solution was that I would have to make a bridge by hand to fit the old footprint.

3. No Problem! I got a nice piece of rosewood and went to work. I traced the outline of the old bridge onto my piece of rosewood and then enlarged it a hair. Then I cut it to shape and drilled pilot holes for the string holes. I marked off the areas that had to be scooped and contoured.
     

4. I shaped the bridge using files and sandpaper, making sure to follow the radius of the original bridge. Then I drilled the string holes almost to size. I would leave the final reaming after the bridge was mounted on the guitar. It turned out nicely. Much better than the cheap bridge that was on the guitar originally.

5. Time to pull out the deep bridge clamps to tightly bond the new bridge to the guitar. Once the glue had set, it was ready to move onto the final steps. This baby is almost ready to string up!
 

6. The saddle slot still needed to be routed so I got out my saddle slotting jig from Stew Mac. This is a great jig. I used a Dremel to do the routing. With that complete, I fitted the guitar with a new bone saddle, set it up, and it was better than new!