JLD Bridge Doctor

JLD Bridge Doctor brought my old Yammie to life again without the hassle or expense of other solutions. The guitar sounds great and holds stable. I Highly recommend the product

I have installed a Bridge Doctor on two guitars: a late 70’s Ibanez Concord—which is a copy of a Gibson Dove—and a 2010 Gibson SJ200 Studio. The Ibanez got the screw mount model of the Bridge Doctor while the Gibson got the brass pins. The Ibanez was bellying a bit and the Bridge Doctor corrected that quite easily. The Gibson got the device primarily as a preventative measure—I saw a vintage Gibson Jumbo that was bellied quite badly so after the positive results with the Ibanez, I figured the Bridge Dr. would be a good way to protect my more expensive guitar. I didn’t want to drill a hole in the Gibson, though, so that’s why I went with the brass pin version.

On neither guitar did I notice an astonishing improvement in tone as some people have reported, including the manufacturer; to be fair, it’s hard to imagine anything astonishingly improving the tone of a Gibson Jumbo. I had read some discussions of this device in which people were wondering whether the lessening of the string break angle over the saddle when using the brass pins instead of the regular bridge pins might adversely affect tone, so I did a little experiment: I initially installed it using three brass pins (6th, 4th, 2nd strings) and three (5th, 3rd, 1st) regular pins. This did not result in any kind of unevenness in volume or tone quality or response from string to string. I see that one reviewer did have problems with the change in break angle in the case of a low saddle, but on a standard saddle there shouldn’t be a problem.

I recommend the Bridge Doctor if your guitar has a belly problem or if you'd like to keep it from developing one.

The bridge on my '88 Yamaha FG335 was starting to lean towards the soundhole and the body was bulging pretty bad. Installation took around 1/2 hour and was pretty easy. It only took a few turns of the allen adjusting screw and the body was flat and the bridge was back in place. I noticed a more balanced sound and the action was improved. I would recommend this product if you don't mind drilling through your bridge.

The right fix for my Kiso Suzuki guitar with lifted bridge. Piece of cake, I was back in the saddle, pardon the pun, in no time ;)

Instructions were easy to understand, the item was fairly easy to install and it performed as advertised. It was great to play that old 12-string again.

I've used the JLD Bridge System, the one that requires on to drill a hole in the bridge, three times in the past with great results--great tone and restored low action. This time I tried the Bridge Doctor with the brass pins, despite the cost. In this case, it was a mistake.

With a bellied top, often the saddle has already been lowered in an attempt to make the guitar playable. This was the case here. The string holes through the bridge pins result in a string height that is somewhat higher than when the string goes through the top. The result was that none of the strings have enough string break for the best tone, and two of them are barely touching the saddle, resulting in buzzing.

I'm probably going to have to remove the Bridge Doctor and put on the other system after drilling a hole in the bridge. I'm sure this works fine with higher saddles, but you need a saddle that is at least an eighth of an inch above the bridge for this to work. Higher yet is better.

A new customer named John brought me this wonderful 1974 Guild. He wanted to know if I could do a neck reset. I said “I sure can” but there a lot of other things we need to look at before considering a reset. I noticed that someone had done a poor job of re-gluing the bridge and that was the starting point. This once beautiful guitar was purchased in Pennsylvania. I ask John If it had belonged to a coal miner or a steel worker because it was so dirty. The top had major and minor contusions, scratches, and you could drive a truck under the strings at the twelfth fret. When the bridge was removed I found that the pin holes were all drilled out to .250 ??? and would have to be plugged. I made a new bridge from Bolivian rose wood (sorry to say I don't have any Brazilian rose wood). Sanded and filled some spots on the top. After the bridge was glued in place I installed a bridge doctor ( No 12 string should be without one.) I routed the slot for the saddle and made a new saddle compensating for every string for best harmonics possible.

These are a real boon to get that belly back in trim. I've fitted these to a number of guitars, mostly older Martins and 12 strings. They work well for almost all but the very worst cases and all my customers who have them have been well satisfied with some remarking the instrument has never sounded so good!

I installed the Bridge Doctor to rescue a 34 year old Klira. Intonation was suffering due to bridge lift.
The tail block was rounded on this guitar and prompted the tension rod to pop off after tightening. The rod would bow under tension allowing side stress to pop it loose. A small poke with a punch would provide the necessary mark to retain the rod was the solution and perhaps could be included in next instruction revision.
I had to cut the system block to clear the guitar's back body brace. Hence had to cut the mounting post and the screw ( the screw at standard length would now interfere with the tension rod if tightened. All in all it was not a textbook install, but achieved textbook results. The bridge was showing signs of improvements as early as a few days with strings off ( while off, I leveled and polished frets.)
Its been in for 4 months and I left the guitar tuned low for that period and had already heard some nicer tone. Bringing back to standard tuning really shows the tone improvement, better highs, mid and low. This is a 24.75 scale instrument and after owning it for 34 years, had restored sound to better than new, with some nice short scale bends that unexpectedly growl a little like my LP. I'm a believer.
I expect the reduced mechanical advantage resulting from the cut (shortened height) system block, will require a lot more tension to achieve the same result, so I plan to be careful and incrementally tweak it at future string changes. I wonder at what point the rod will yield though.

Intonation is improved and I'm just stoked that I was able to breathe some new life into my old baby.

Received the product promptly. It did bring down the bridge, but not the top. It did help the sound of the guitar.