Bent Bridge

A mate of mine brought me a Marlin with a Strat type bridge - the return springs are knackered and at some time heavy tension of the strings has bent the back of the bridge up - I was hoping to place the bridge in an engineers vice in an attempt to straighten it - has anybody come across this before ?
Thanks....

not happened to me but if the bridge has actually managed to bend i'd invest in a new one, sounds like its a bit on the soft metal side :confused:

Eventually my mate splashed out on some new strings and we took the old ones off the Marlin, but the back of the bridge was still too high - On slackening the six screws at the front of the bridge, the back of the bridge dropped to it's proper position - without stripping it anymore a small block of wood was wedged into the gap in the back of the guitar such that the bridge couldn't move - then the six screws were re- tightened.
after re - stringing we were then able to set up the action and the intonation - I know it's not the ideal solution but now the guitar is well playable although there is no tremelo arm at present.

Anyone know where I can find Bridge springs for a Marlin ? - Strat springs might fit, I don't know if Marlins are still in manufacture ?

Browse through the >StewMac< website.

Thanks LATS