Ibanez RG Trem Post Repair

[YodaGuitar]

I do most of my work on acoustics so I have the skills and tools to fix my sons electric guitar, the question is how? His metal bracket idea worked for a year or so but there is so much damage I think a sturdy wood replacement block a few inches larger than the damage should do it. (kinda like a wood shim appraoach under a damaged bridge on an acoustic)

This thing is made I believe of basswood but it feels like balsawood. It's crap, but it's light and he likes it so I don't want to reenforce it too much and add too much weight. The real question is repair it horizontally or vertically across the posts, or some other way? Either way there is a fair amount of routing and touch up involved. 

I am open to ideas or guidance if anyone has fixed one before as this looks like a pretty common problem but I have only seen people talk about glueing and fixing the hole and that isn't going to work on this damage.

A few photos of the patient. 

 

 

[Bizman62]

You mean this area, marked red?

I'm by no means an expert but I'd redo at least the blue area. On the right side there'd be a butt joint, addressing that for maximum strength might be tricky. Then again it'd be no different to a neck joint so being solidly glued both on the side and bottom should be plenty strong enough.

Is it possible to reach the bushings from the bottom side as well? If so, adding bolts from the bottom to prevent the bushings from nudging might also help. Like so:

[YodaGuitar]

Exactly. I was thinking just a little bigger like outlined here and then reroute the opening, but I get your point and that might be more than neccessary. Absolute genius idea on the post from below. That shouln't be too hard and it is definitely accessbile fro underneath. Thank you for the input.