Shaftesbury Les Paul Bass: Replacing an old bass bridge?

Hi All

I have an old MIJ Shaftesbury Les Paul Bass with a very basic old bridge, my restoration is not about making it look original but more functional, but I was wondering about using wood filler or dowels to fill up the old bridge screw holes so I can re-drill for the new bridge, does anyone here have any good advice?

Regards

Hi ririraa,

Your best off using wood dowel to fill the holes up. Find dowel the same diameter or slightly bigger that fits the holes well, you might have to drill out the old holes to match the dowel. Bridge screws have a lot of pressure on them, wood filler doesn't have the strength of wooden dowel and filler tends to fail if there is a screw threaded into it.

It's also worth cutting some slots or sanding a small flat along the length of your dowels, this stops the holes becoming airtight and pushing the dowels back out when the glue has been applied.

For smaller pickguard screw holes, I've started using bamboo skewers from the supermarket, they're great for this sort of repair!

DAN.

Thanks for the advice Dan.
I'm off to find some dowel and some wood glue, any thoughts on some good wood glue.

Cheers

I'm using Cascamite to glue veneer to the front of a guitar and it works really well, but for gluing dowel into holes, good old PVA is as good as anything.....

Cheers Corsair, I'm finally getting around to fixing up my project instruments.

Also sourcing a bridge for 17.5mm string spacing for this short scale beasty.
Found this very expensive black Schaller bridge.

Allparts UK Schaller Bridge

Schaller site

I already have 2 EMG humbuckers ready to go
EMG SEHB

1) Before the copper tape


2) After


3) After

You'll have a bridge + pick ups worth twice as much as the guitar. Good luck.

It's been very difficult sourcing the right sized parts for this shortscaler, I'm revising my bridge decision and I'm going with the original for now.

Should be finished this weekend, will post more pics when I'm done.

Finally finished ish!

Headstock
https://2img.net/h/i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff391/ririraa/1HeadstockCloseupComplete.jpg

Body
https://2img.net/h/i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff391/ririraa/2BodyGuitarCompleteAlt.jpg

Full Guitar
https://2img.net/h/i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff391/ririraa/3FullGuitarComplete.jpg

Looking good....