repair Q for Marty

[Russell Letson]

I need to reglue the pickguard/pickup assembly on an archtop--it's not a standard assembly with screws and metal brackets, but an all-wood design, glued to a block that is in turn glued to the fingerboard extension. The pickup was retrofitted, epoxied to the pickguard and rests on the top, cushioned by a small bit of cork. It looks rather like this Buscarino:



There's a short dowel leg supporting the lower part of the pickguard, but the entire attachment is at that block. So here' are the questions: What kind of glue is going to work best? Devcon epoxy? And what kind of clamping would be needed? There's maybe 1/8" clearance between the block and the top.

I've done minor fixes on this and other archtops, but this one is a bit trickier--particularly deciding what kind of glue is going to hold up to the various stresses.

I've already had the original tailpiece replaced with a Benedetto, and I suppose I could have a conventional plastic pickguard put on, but the guitar was built by my friend Tom Crandall--it was his first, and I'd like to keep as much the original design as possible.

[Deleted]

The block should be glued to the fingerrest, epoxy or even gel super glue will work. It should not be glued to the fingerboard extension, this should be pinned or screwed.

[Russell Letson]

Thanks, Marty. I should have indicated that the mounting block remains attached to the fingerboard extension--don't know how Tom secured it, but it feels rock-solid. I want to make sure that I use a strong enough glue so I don't experience a repeat of last week, when the whole pickguard/pickup assembly came off in my hand as I was plugging in for our coffeehouse gig. For a change I hadn't brought a second guitar, so I played the Crandall through a mike and borrowed a the bass player's ancient Gibson 175 for a couple tunes.