I'm not a Luthier, and so, I'm not sure if this is the right forum for a post like this, but I began my 1117-4 repair in earnest and thought I'd document it. "My Guitar" forum seemed as appropriate, but most repairs and reworks seem to go down in the BFLG. Please forgive me if this is in the wrong place...

I thought about waiting for Mr. Budny's shop to open, but as it turns out the airfreight from Japan to NH and back would just be so expensive. And DanSavage, MWoody, FlySig, Mark in Boise and SOBeach, all provided such helpful and inspiring information, I figured I should give it a whirl. Hence I've begun my 1117-4 Repair Project (albeit slowly). After a lot of thought and dry runs, I found that there was very little space under the bridge to get the CA glue under there evenly, and I just could see myself misaligning the bridge and botching up this repair. So I figured, I'd better take the whole bridge off...not sure that was the right thing to do at this point...

My 1117-4 is masking taped-up and ready to go!

The hot spatula and iron trick...I needed to go really slow because the soundboard was splintering between the wood and the finish...

Two hours later, the bridge finally came loose and off! Whew...but notice the peeling wood. And there are those dowels that line up the bridge perfectly. Nice!

Per the preliminary evaluation, the bridge was glued onto the finish. I suspect CA glue was used to do this job. Most of the bottom of the bridge is covered with hard finish. Now, I need to figure out if I should CA this bridge back on or clean up the soundboard, and shave the finish off of the bottom of the bridge and use hyde glue...

The peeling soundboard is kind of scary, but this way I can get to the cracks and areas where the finish is peeling around the bridge. I'm definitely NOT progressing with confidence at this point, but I am going to really take my time and make sure I at least give this beauty a fighting chance. I'm sorry if my work makes you cringe!

Yup, that is a bit "cringe" inducing. But fixable as Dan noted.

Considering how that existing peeling made the bridge removal all the more tricky, I think you did as clean of a job as could possibly be done. Kudos. 

Keep taking it slow and careful.

btw - discovered this webpage  Applause Bridge Repair  done by ksdaddy.  Not exactly your same scenario but maybe helpful.

Again, MWoody, DanSavage & SOBeach; Thank you so much for the encouragement. My son watched me as I slowly worked the bridge off and we were both on edge the whole time...just cringing and screaming every time it sounded like wood was splintering. Finally, my daughter came down stairs, and we shrieked at the stair squeaking thinking something gave on the guitar, and we just about lost it. At that point, my son had enough, and decided he'd better get some rest...It was so hard because the soundboard was already peeling away under the bridge. I didn't know Amateur Luthiery could be hard on the heart!

"Can the wood fibers still attached to the soundboard be pushed back into place?" Yes!

"If so, does it present a reasonably level surface?" Yes!

"The choice to use epoxy, CA or hide glue will depend on the smoothness of the two surfaces to be joined."

Okay, I think I will go with Z-poxy. That should give me plenty of time to work the clamps in place.

With the neck angle just a bit off, shaving the finish from the bottom of the bridge would bring the neck angle just about to the top of the bridge. So I am slowly evaluating what it would take to get the finish off of the bottom of the bridge. I think there is enough space to get the Z-Poxy into the splintered wood. Since the surface is still fairly flat, I should be able to clamp everything in place and secure things pretty well. The pins that are still embedded in the bridge are excellent and will enable me to line up things pretty well.

ksdaddy's post was also very informative. Thanks for the heads-up SOBeach. If some tender loving care and patience can get that Applause back in shape, I think my chances are not impossibly bad. I'm sure there will be more "cringing" to come, but please bare with me. Thanks again...I'm going to wait a couple days before I proceed. I can only take so much Amateur Luthiery excitement in one day! Whew!

Okay...after getting over the trauma of removing the bridge from the 1117-4, I decided to clean up any excess finish that remained on the soundboard and the bridge. I also made a bridge clamp that goes under the bridge through the sound hole. I decided to go with the 30-minute flavor of Z-Poxy, and thin and thick CA glue to fix the cracks and fill in the finish where ever there are finish chips. Here's everything I need to finish off the project;

Filling the finish cracks with thin CA was pretty easy (albeit a bit messy). These CA products recommended by DanSavage are really quite phenomenal (thanks DanSavage!). The difficulty was getting the glue all the way into the splintered soundboard. The splinter under the bridge went under the bridge and about 1 cm beyond! I thought CA glue would be the best to get deep into the splinter with a syringe, but CA adhere's and grips so quickly; fear drove me to use Z-Poxy. Since Z-Poxy was too thick for a small syringe, I had to push the glue in with my spatula...

After gluing under the splinter, I first clamped the area in front of the bridge to try to squeeze the splinter together; and sure enough the Z-Poxy started to flow out of the splinter. On a side note, while I was working on filling the finish cracks, I spilled some CA glue on some Saran Wrap (plastic wrapping sheet) and I noticed the CA didn't burn through the sheet (after all it's plastic). I decided to wrap some aluminum bars with Saran Wrap and use them as clamping cauls. The CA sticks to the plastic wrap, but I can immediately tear the excess Saran Wrap away and sand and polish the finish down. Of course in doing so, the plastic wrap is sanded away as well and doesn't interfere with making a clean professional looking finish. 

During my dry runs and glue runs, I've been spilling CA and Epoxy all over the place. I'm just not used to working with these strong adhesives. I figured I'd better be cautious. Newspaper inside and around the sound hole. After clamping everything into place and after waiting about 6 hours, I added thin CA glue to further fill in the cracks, and used thick CA to fill the areas that needed filling in the finish.

Now, I'm just going to wait 72 hours, sand and polish up the finish, and see if she's good to go...

Still debating whether bridge screws are going to be necessary...but no matter how many times I look at her, she sure is one heck of a beauty! I hope all this works out!

Nice progress arumako. It's getting there! 

Good photos, and write-up too. All helpful stuff for us apprentice BFLG'rs. 

This is extremely interesting to read. Thanks for wanting to share your journey. Major cudo's to Dan, Woody and SO for being available for consultation and never ending encouragement.

Thanks again for the encouragement MWoody, DanSavage & SOBeach!

@DanSavage - thanks for the side-note regarding Z-Poxy's Laminating Resin. I'll definitely need to get some of that for another project I'll be working on soon.

@jay - Your kind comment is most appreciated. It really is my privilege to share. Everybody at OFC has been so inspiring and helpful. Did you see DanSavage's "1619-4 Rebuild" thread under the BFLG? Priceless stuff! I hope documenting this will help some other Ovation restoration somewhere in the world. As you said, 

really says it all.

Tomorrow the clamps come off and the finish sanding and polishing begins!

Inspired by DanSavage's "1619-4 Rebuild," I have pushed through to finish my 1117-4. At some points it was pretty close to "carnage," but in the end it seems to have come together rather well!

The problem with novice guitar restorers like me is we just get too liberal with the adhesives! After the clamps came off, it was pretty obvious that a lot of scraping, sanding and polishing was going to be required!

My trusty exacto blade and sharpened half-inch chisel was exactly what I needed to scrape the excess glue off of the bridge and finish...sorry to induce more cringing here!

Since the guitar's finish is polyurethane based, I figured automotive waxing compound and polish would be (not the best, but...) the most appropriate economic solution. Here's everything I needed to get this done...

The exacto blade is nice and flat. If I point the blade away from me, and pull the exacto blade over the finish toward me, it scrapes all the mounds down to a nice and flat condition. The sharp chisel enabled me to clean around and over the bridge where I was a bit too enthusiastic with the adhesives! I just had to work really, really slowly and softly! Once things seemed pretty settled, I added some more thin CA around the bridge. After 4 runs, the CA began to puddle around the bridge which meant (theoretically anyway) that the capillary action of the glue filled every gap around the bridge.

Once the scrapping ended, I wet sanded using 400, 600, 800, 1200, and 2000 grit sandpaper. Then I used the 7 micron abrasive waxing compound, 2 microns and finally 1 micron...

And then I used polishing compound to brighten her up... all the gaps and cracks have been filled and she is just glimmering!

Now, to string her up and see how she holds up under pressure...I was a bit leary that my mixing of the Z-Poxy was a bit off, but apparently this stuff is pretty forgiving! The wrong adhesive would have rendered this project a disaster! Thanks to DanSavage, MWoody & MarkinBoise's expertise on the subject, I was spared the alternative heart wrenching scenario! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The string height is right at 2.2mm at the 12th fret with no buzzing!

She's holding up under medium gauge string tension and sounding absolutely SWEET! She is everything I imagined her to be and more!

So...thank you for all the encouragement and advice DanSavage, MWoody, FlySig, SOBeach, MarkinBoise, jay and anybody else I may have missed! Without the help of the OFC, this beautiful 1117-4 would have been in the trash! I will definitely be playing her for my next performance!

Domo Arigato 10 times over!

And she lived happily ever after. Bravo! That is a awesome job! Congratulations. Let us know when you are open for business.

Nicely done arumako. Congrats!

enjoy that "fixed-it-myself" mojo.