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Doing my first pinless bridge, and as a location aid I'd run the 'E' and 'e' strings through the bridge and taped them to the nut. And when I was doing that I noticed that the strings could not seat their spooled ends all the way against the bridge opening, the relieved slot was too narrow for that. Am I missing something if I do what I gotta do to get the strings to seat solidly against the string opening? My guess is that it's not a good idea to leave things be; the spool would try to force away the upper edge of the opening, besides which it looks right crude and I think prevents the string from solidly seating, always trying to wedge itself further into the slot.

Comments, observations?

Thanks!

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Peter Havriluk

If I'm understanding correctly, then yes, that will probably split the bridge sooner or later. Not sure how to go about fixing it without taking the bridge off, though... perhaps a long paring chisel could reach and widen the slot.

Good part is the bridge ain't installed yet, just trial-fitted with masking tape. Dead easy to access to work on. That's the good part of building one's own, if it ain't right there's only one person to blame.

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Peter Havriluk

Hi Peter,
What kind of pinless bridge design are you using? Can you post a picture? I recently changed mine to what I hope is a stronger and better design.

Yes, I would like to see people’s designs too. I have tried a couple of pinless designs for steel strings (thinking “Lowden- like”) but have ended up converting to a pinned bridge because I couldn’t quite get it right. I have another one on the bench right now and need to make a decision. Please give me some therapy.

I have been experimenting with this recently and came up with a two piece solution. (I posted these a few weeks ago so you might be familiar with it)

I found the two most important things to get right were: -

1. Make sure the string comes out of the anchor hole/slot low enough to have an impact on the saddle
2. Make sure the anchor for the ball end of the string is far enough away from the saddle to clear the tied/wound part of the string so this does not sit on the saddle.

I used a bridge (Wenge) with a recessed part to take an anchor plate made from the off cut of Richlite left over from the fret board. The anchor plate was bolted through to the bridge plate which holds it all together and carries the tension through to the underside of the bridge plate similar to a pinned bridge.

This worked really well and looked quite good too.

Hope this is useful,
Fred.

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https://overendsite.wordpress.com/2017/ ... -complete/

I tried a pinless bridge once (structurally similar to a classical bridge, but with closed ends to the saddle slot and slot in front of the tie block), but I don't think I took a picture of it, and got rid of it pretty quick. It was incredibly annoying trying to do setup work without being able to remove the strings at the bridge end. Had to unwind them entirely from the tuners for every check of the action/intonation. Or changing strings, you have to cut them in the middle because the crimped ends from the tuners won't fit back through the holes in the bridge. Plus the higher stress on the bridge glue joint makes me nervous.

If I were to do another pinless, it would be the style where you have metal pegs sticking up from the bridge surface that the ball ends hook over. Fred's style would also work, being able to unscrew the whole string kaboodle to get at the saddle.

I've done a few iterations for my take down travel guitar (guitAR-7) where I needed a design that would allow the strings to easily be removed from the bridge. The first design used string slots and a recess the ball ends would slip under. This reduced the footprint somewhat, so I added some small bolts to the glued down bridge in a "belt and suspenders" fashion.
The second iteration (not shown) used a closed slot that preserved more of the footprint, but still if the ball ends were not fully seated they could potentially put too much strain on the slotted portion of the bridge.
The latest design uses a slightly wider bridge and a taller "tie block" area and individual drill holes to recess the ball ends into. This preserves the footprint and allows more wood around the slots, which I believe makes a stronger bridge.

Peter,
You asked me about the pinless bridge on my grandson's parlor last year over on acousticguitarconstructionforum. Here are the two links posted there, were I got most of the construction details. A groove is milled across the bottom edge of the bridge that the string balls nest in. I did it on a drill press with a milling vise using a round nosed bit. https://jennybiddle.com/day-23-design-the-bridge/, https://jennybiddle.com/day-24-bridge-engineering/. The next one I do I'll use this along with Clay's slot for easier string changes.

Hi Carl,
The bridge design you linked to has the "closed slot" like the second iteration of the bridge I made (not shown). When you cut slots rather than drill holes the upper surface of the slotted area becomes like little "fingers" and has less support. If a string doesn't fully seat against the front of the recess the tension acting on the ends of the "fingers" might snap them. That is why I went with the last design using individual drilled holes. The wood between each string slot I believe adds a lot of strength to the design.

Clay, the groove I milled is in the middle of the bottom edge of the bridge in about the same area as the holes you drilled in your's. With its rounded bottom the string ball lays horizontally and tight in that groove. I was also planning to drill the holes before cutting the slots. We'll see. I'm planning on using it on some guitars I'm building from wood harvested on my property, pine top, white oak b&s and neck, manzanita bridge, fingerboard, peghead veneers and hopefully binding. So if it doesn't work, I've got plenty of more wood to redo it.

Hi Carl,
That is how I did the second iteration. As long as people are careful when restringing the guitar it should work fine. Manzanita is a tough wood and I think a good choice.

Well, with the help of a friendly reamer, all strings fit nice and snug (difficulty was from the wrapping at the ball end).

And the conversation sure offers some perspective. Reconsidering is an option.

Thanks, everybody!

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Peter Havriluk