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Nice design Jimmy,
The adjustable button heads add a nice option.
Thanks for the pics!

Wade

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Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

Don,

This pic is better quality, different guitar, but isn't a side view. I don't have any made up right now and these guitars are both happily in the hands of their owners. The pins are not piano wire. It tarnishes. I use stainless steel pop rivets and cut them with a dremel tool, put a slight bevel on the edges of the cut end, then polish them. I use a thick walled brass tube collar and the pins go all the way through the top and yes, I do use a bridge plate and the pins extend through it also.

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Jimmy Caldwell
http://www.caldwellguitars.com

I was surprised while reading this post. Most of my knowledge has to do with the ukulele but I’m not a builder yet just a reading and thinker. The pictures above are not what I expected. My idea of a pinless bridge has the strings coming from under the soundboard through holes in the bridge and then going over the saddle. Ukulele’s normally have a tie bridge and or pins. There are a number of people going pinless with the thought that it decreases the rotational pull on the bridge. You can find an example of this from Dave Means Glyph Ukulele. This is how I am planning on building my ukulele and a guitar for my Father.

Glyph Ukulele

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aka konacat

If you think my playing is bad you should hear me sing!
Practice breeds confidence and confidence breeds competence. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in practice.

I made a steel string guitar with a pinless bridge in Sergei de Jonge's guitar-making course this past summer (great course, by the way... i'll write more about that another time). Sergei's opinion on the need for a bridge plate made a lot of sense to me. It has to do with keeping the bridge glued on with regard to wood movement. The cross-grain joint of the bridge to the top invites the joint to come loose as the top shrinks and expands with changes in humidity. A bridge plate with the grain running the same direction as that of the bridge stabilizes the top under the bridge, so the joint holds. As per Sergei's suggestion, I used spruce for my bridge plate - nice and light, and it does the job. By all accounts, btw, the guitar sounds great.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/