I came upon an old 000-sized Takamine from 1979 but it had been left tuned up to tension for years, causing the bridge area to “belly”.
I ordered the bridge truss not knowing what to expect. It was easy to install with the hardware (which made the strings top loaders, more on that in a bit).
I say easy, meaning as easy as it is to get your arm inside the sound hole to put the nuts on the brass posts. If you have large Popeye Forearms and big, meaty Sausage Fingers, you may need to have a pro or maybe convince your wife to do the job for you.
I chose the add-on style with the brass bolt-on posts as I was not sure it would do the job. I do build and modify guitars, so I am not afraid of putting one under the drill press… I just wanted to be sure the truss would solve the situation.
Boy, it exceeded my expectations! The belly was GONE within just a few days, with me taking a slow approach and making incremental changes.
Another reason I used the bolt-on style was that this guitar still had a working factory piezo pickup under the adjustable saddle (it screws up and down to change the saddle height), so I didn’t want to disturb or damage that in the process.
The top mount brass posts do change the tone a little bit, but it’s not bad sounding at all. I should have put a little thread lock on each of them as I do have to go and retighten them occasionally. Again, it’s a little tight to get my arm and a socket in position, but maybe I will do that on some rainy day when I have the time and patience to fiddle around with it.
If you have an acoustic guitar with the physique of a middle aged beer drinker, give this thing a try!
Hope my review has helped you and brightened your day! Thanks!