Washburn parlor top radius

[Ian Pender]

I'm about to start restoring a Washburn parlor guitar from the early 1890's. The bridge popped loose ages ago, and someone added a tailpiece and floating bridge, and strung it up with steel strings. As a result, the top is sagging a great deal. I was wondering if anyone knows what the radius of this top would have been originally. Thanks!

[George Roberts]

Ian,

I have 3 Washburn guitars here, (one of which has the Durkee patent bridge) and the two unused replacement bridges.  They all have the same width and length.  Perhaps you could keep the same proportions and increase the size?

[Ian Pender]

Yeah, that's what I'll probably end up doing. There's a lot of wood torn up from the foot print that'll have to be patched, so I'll want to cover that up. Interestingly enough, after I posted on here last night, I went and removed all of the glue residue from the foot print, and I discovered even more sections of missing spruce that were sloppily filled in with hide glue. So I'm assuming that someone must have replaced the original bridge with a larger one, which then went missing, at which point the floating bridge and tailpiece were added.