Official Luthiers Forum!

What do you think is the best material, (wood), for under the bridge? This piece of wood takes a lot of abuse from so many string changes, in a guitars life. What about koa, or ebony, or mahog, because I've got a lot of little pieces, of a lot of different kinds of wood, laying around in my shop. Alan.

Stew-Mac uses Maple...
I think Oak or Lignum Vita

This comes up every so often. Some swear by Brazilian, others the standard hard rock maple. I've used sycamore which is a maple, hard rock maple, and walnut.

So, just about any hardwood that is close grain and split resistant would be a real candidate. I liked the recent thread which called for hardening the bridge pin holes with Cyanoacrylate Glue once the holes are finished. This would give some wear resistance.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Hard is good...weight is a very important consideration...as is the weight of the bridge itself.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

I think it was Alan Carruth that said that he uses Osage Orange. It is a very tough wood and sonically is excellent as well (no dampening).

Osage orange, hmmm, I like the sound of that one. I think I'll see if LMI has any. I'm lucky enough to be able to go there and look at their stuff. It's only half an hour away! Alan.

Osage Orange is a wood that used to be used for archery bows...very tough. Those that have built guitars with Osage Orange say that other than the looks, sounds like brazilian rosewood with a glassy sound.

It is not a commonly harvested tree but sometimes it is collected as part of urban tree cutting.

Because it is just for bridge blocks, I would check out eBay as there are alot of people that sell small pieces and cutoffs that would still be of a good size for bridge blocks.

I know that in the past that Bobc had back and side sets of Osage Orange.

I want to say that one of our suppliers was getting Osage in from somewhere south of the U.S. It wasn't the same the hedgerow tree that we think of when Osage is mentioned.

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Aoibeann

Yes, that is the same one. Osage Orange can be in shrub form or tree form depending on how it is cultivated. It produces a fruit (non-edible) that smells like Oranges. The fruit is supposedly a good repellent for spiders and insects. It can be very thorny when young but in tree forms is much less thorny.

It is mostly ring porous with the wood being a yellow color that mellows to a golden light brown as it oxidizes.

Because it is used for long bows, it has high bending strength so that even when thinned for a bridge block will still hold up well and not fatigue over time as much as other woods.

On the John Mayes "voicing" video, he recommends Maple for a warmer tone & Rosewood for a brighter sound. (Of course, he mentions that the choice of bridge plate materials is only one small factor in achieving the tone you are after)
I have always used off cuts from my back material as long as it doesn't split when i bend it between my thumbs quite hard.
I try to arrange the grain so that all the pins don't line up along one grain line.

I wonder if these string ferrules would be a good idea in a bridge plate? They are meant for the top of a solid body string through electric, but might be adapted for the bottom of an acoustic bridge plate. Don't know what they might do to tone, but could prevent a bridge plate getting chewed up from ball ends. Thinking about it some more I wonder if doing this would also add mass/weight to the bridge assembly and serve to dampen or diminish tone/volume. Guess I'll just have to try them out and see.

CrowDuck

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Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

[QUOTE=crowduck] I wonder if these string ferrules would be a good idea in a bridge plate? They are meant for the top of a solid body string through electric, but might be adapted for the bottom of an acoustic bridge plate. Don't know what they might do to tone, but could prevent a bridge plate getting chewed up from ball ends. Thinking about it some more I wonder if doing this would also add mass/weight to the bridge assembly and serve to dampen or diminish tone/volume. Guess I'll just have to try them out and see.

CrowDuck [/QUOTE]

You'd have to string from the inside, though, like when you are using those temporary bridge bolts. PITA

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Hmmmm, interesting idea Crow.

[QUOTE=jtkirby] [QUOTE=crowduck] I wonder if these string ferrules would be a good idea in a bridge plate? They are meant for the top of a solid body string through electric, but might be adapted for the bottom of an acoustic bridge plate. Don't know what they might do to tone, but could prevent a bridge plate getting chewed up from ball ends. Thinking about it some more I wonder if doing this would also add mass/weight to the bridge assembly and serve to dampen or diminish tone/volume. Guess I'll just have to try them out and see.

CrowDuck [/QUOTE]

You'd have to string from the inside, though, like when you are using those temporary bridge bolts. PITA

[/QUOTE]

Thanks JTKirby, I hadn't thought of that. And now that I look at things that way I'm thinking that perhaps the bridge plate could be reduced in size so that it's only as large as the outline of the bridge itself, and not extending to the X brace intersection. There are some classical builders who dispense with a bridge plate altogether, not needing to account for ball ends. Sorry to hijack this thread, but this discussion has given me food for thought regarding bridge plates. A subject perhaps sometimes overlooked and taken for granted.

CrowDuck

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Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

I think you might be onto something here Crow. I've been thinking about it, and if you drilled six holes through the back, and carried some simple soda straws in the case with the guitar, you could thread the strings through them, to get them into the ferrules. I don't like pin bridges, and have tried a tailpiece instead, and have had some probs. with it, because it's not an archtop, low angle, bridge pick-up didn't work well, but sounds great acoustically. It would be hard to sell the guitar to some one, because it would be so wierd, but I might do it on one of them I'm making now, because it's for me.  Alan.

I use hard maple. It seems to me like a perfect combination of light
weight, split resistance, and hardness.  I suppose you could find
something harder (rosewoods) or something lighter, but I think hard
maple offers a good combo.



I am curious about trying osage orange.



Nate

Stew Mac sells the "Plate Mate" which is a .032" brass plate with 6 holes, meant to take the abuse that the bridge plate would take from the strings.

Has anyone tried this? Perhaps this would be good to use if worried about wear and tear on the bridge plate...

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Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."

Colin uses an insert made of bone that does what stewmac's plate mate does...just FYI.