Hopf " tater bug " guitar type thingy..

[thefishinmusician]

Customer got this for 100 at an estate sale....The bridge is coming up...Luckily , the top isn't distorting...Question...Removing the soundhole decoration to gain access to clamp the bridge..I'm pretty darn sure it's wood glued in , as all the screws are slot heads on the tuners...Anybody done this ?

[Frank Ford]

You can actually reglue the bridge without access to the inside, but  you do need to be careful.  Once the bridge is removed,  you can clean the gluing surfaces and get the bridge to fit nicely.  Using hot hide glue, you can press the bridge in place and hold it with very light clamping over the body and/or weights.  Admittedly, that's not the kind of bridge gluing we're used to doing with most guitars, but the tension is quite low with nylon strings, and the bridge pins hold quite a lot of it, provided you have good knots or beads on the strings.

I usually call these things "guitar lutes" because they have that kind of look.  They're rather popular among the crowd who does performance at places like Renaissance Faire venues.  Cash value, not so much, but coolness factor is fairly high, if they play  well. . .

[nathan clark]

Could this be the excuse you've been looking for to buy the LMI vacuum press?

[thefishinmusician]

Well...No....

[harrison phipps]

just did one of these, used two bolts with wing nuts for clamping pressure. Filed a flat spot on the end of the bolt, drilled a small hole,,tied on thread. The small bolt fit through the largest opening in the soundhole decoration, fished the thread through the pin hole and pulled the bolt up. The two wing nuts tightened the bridge down during glueing

[Scott Supak]

A Galoot!

I wrestled with one of these by Hofner several years ago.

Besides bridge issues it also had top cracks and loose braces that made removing the soundhole obstruction mandatory.

I used a very thin Xacto saw blade that fits their No.1 handle to remove it.

After reinstalling it using several strategically placed cleats beneath the "vines", I filled the kerfs with tinted 5 min. epoxy.

Like many other repairs, covering your tracks inspired the most hand-wringing of the whole thing.

All-in-all, it went well.