replacing "white slot" by bridge pins

hey,

I have an Acoustic Dean. I was going to change the strings. I've had them off for a good 2 weeks now. The white "slot thing" before the bridge pins, fell off. It was a used acoustic. It looks like there's still the other half inside now. So... what the hell do I do now? I assume take it to a guitar tech and tell me it'll cost a lot of money to get it worked on???

I think "the white slot thing" is the bridge saddle. The part that is still in the slot is a shim that was installed to adjust the bridge height.

There should be some small notches cut into one of the edges off the piece that fell out. Even if notches were not actually cut, the strings will have left marks on the material. These will match the size of the strings. The largest string was the bass E, and the notch for it is the widest one. Put the saddle into the slot so that the notch for the bass E is where the bass E string will be installed. The treble E string is much smaller in diameter, so the mark left by it will be much narrower than the one for the bass E.

In future, get your new strings [u]before[/u] you take off the old ones, and swap them out one at a time. Our own Kevin Taylor has an excellent tutorial >here<.

So it's supposed to come out then? I took them all off because I was going to do a real thorough cleaning on the thing. Theres a bunch of real black grime on the higher frets.

Either way, you shouldn't keep them off for such a long time. The neck will adjust to tension without the strings, them when you put new ones on, it will buzz like crazy untill it gets re-adjusted to the tension.

Originally Posted by: Guitardude61951So it's supposed to come out then?[/QUOTE]
Just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should do it.
[QUOTE=Guitardude61951]I took them all off because I was going to do a real thorough cleaning on the thing. Theres a bunch of real black grime on the higher frets.

As elklandercc said, you should not leave it unstrung for more than it takes to do what you need to do. A bit of lemon oil and a stiff toothbrush will take care of that accumulated grunge, but you should use tape to hold the bridge saddle in place while the strings are off. It's best to replace the strings one at a time so that everything stays where it should be, including the neck tension.