Official Luthiers Forum!

I have been stuydying all of the threads on pinless bridges and I cant quite find a definitive answer as to whether or not it is necessary to bolt the bridge to the top or not.

I really dont see a need to bolt it, but having not done one of these before I am certainly no expert on the subject. I have a special guitar I am working on that I would like to put a pinless bridge on. If it goes well, I may do all of my bridges as pinless.

so what is the final answer??? bolt or no bolt?

One more question..... if you bolt it on, how do you hide the bolts and how do you keep the nuts from coming unscrewed ? is there a special plate to go under the bridge?

Any other tips or tricks that havent been covered in the past threads would be helpful also.

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Reguards,

Ken H

egag,heresy even! no! no! no!

Mike Doolin has a nice write up on his web site on his pinless bridge. The location may be hidden but if you e-mail and ask nice and polite and all, he'll probably give it you.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I sent an e-mail to Mike. Thanks for the tip!

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Reguards,

Ken H

My bridge design is very similar to Doolin's... no bolts needed.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Hey Ken,
I have been using a pinless bridge up until now. I will be stringing up my
first pinned bridge guitar in the next month. I have talked to a number of
very well-known and highly regarded luthiers who have recently just
started offering a pinless bridge. They have all reported that they really
couldn't notice much difference and if there was a difference, they felt it
was probably a positive one.

There is no need to use a bolt. Just make sure you have a very good glue
joint. You will not get away with having finish under the bridge like you
can with a pinned bridge.

The reason I am switching to a pinned design is just because it appeals to
more players out there. Times may change but I think a lot of players
think of Ovations when they think of pinless designs. But because
companies like Breedlove are starting to become more mainstream it
might become more widely accepted. But don't let that stop you - a
whole lot of folks really like the pinless functionality.

Thanks for the reply ! This answers the question about the bolts... I really didnt want to use a bolt for the reasons stated above. I like the look of  the pinless bridge, and am working on a design that should be unique to me. The first guitar to get this will be using snakewood for the bridge and fingerboard. Adding dots to that kind of bridge would take away from the effect of the spots on the snakewood, so I didnt want to have to hide anything.

I started making myself some jigs to produce these in an accurate manner today. It should be quite different than any that I have seen posted so far.

Thanks again for the quick replies!

Ken

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Reguards,

Ken H

I might try a pinless bridge similar to George Lowden's with my next build.

If you're going to design your own, you might want to take a look at David Hurd's (Kawika) Thoughts on the Sizes of Ukulele and Guitar Bridges and Bridge Plates

Although he only discusses nylon stringed instruments, I think you could apply his thinking to bridges for higher tensioned instruments.

I found it most helpful. (Thanks David!)

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D..