The bridge on the old Chrysalis guitar, like the new Ridgewing guitar, attaches to the grills with four pairs of hooks. This was created as a fault-tolerant design, because if the strings are put up to tension with the bridge not fully seated, all of the strings’ tension can land on the point of just one or two hung-up hooks, and they can break. The idea is that with one or two hooks busted, you can still string up and play like normal. To avoid such breakage, when you assemble the guitar, just before you throw the headstock lever to tension the strings, you look closely at the outermost hooks to make sure they are snugged up.

Here, the outer bass-side bridge hook broke off and has been repaired. Epoxy doesn’t like to glue to itself, so breaks have to be reinforced. The broken-off hook was first super-glued back into place to get the correct shape, and then four 1/16” steel pins were drilled in, inserted and glued, one at a time. The result is significantly stronger than the original. To finesse the broken hook problem, the bridge will be made as one piece of die-cast magnesium.