Official Luthiers Forum!

I am making a cocobolo uke (sides and back with cocobolo). I think a cocobolo bridge on engleman will look nice, but I understand their can be problems with adhesion. Is it worth the trouble to try or stick to ebony?

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

Ricardo,

It depends on the look you want and the cocobolo wood you have. I have done three bridges with cocbolo that glued with no problem using hot hide glue. Try gluing a piece on a scrap piece of top wood. I like the look:

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Just for satisfying my curiosity, and the recent allergy thread, do you finish your bridges that are made with Cocobolo?

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Waddy, if you are asking me I'd just use fingerboard oil on it like I do my ebony bridges.

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

Waddy,

Of course I finished it or I wouldn't have glued it onto the top . . . oh I see No I don't finish my bridges apart from polishing them up to 12,000 micromesh. It's the dust that's the allergy problem and there isn't any of that there. The same guitars had cocbolo fingerboards and I have played one of them for coming up to a year now with no scratching or wheezing.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

I love coco bridges and have never had adhesion issues. Oldest one is about 5 yrs. There's lots in the archives but a freshly sanded gluing surface seems to be all that is required.

Only issue for me is weight. Most of it is heavier than most other bridge materials. I usually have to do some adjusting to keep the weight where I want it.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Yeah, I've got a couple of coco guitars in the works, all with coco bridges, I too was a bit concerned about adhesion(though I have a coco bridge that is 2 years old glued with Titebond and it is fine). I did some tests recently and found that fish glue works really good, seemed to hold better than titebond...at least with the three test pieces I used. I can't imagine it failing as it took a beating to pull/tear those pieces apart with major wood failure.

Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Dave, thats a nice looking bridge. I'll do the cocobolo. Thanks all.

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA