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This is a practice bridge out of Walnut for the guitar I'm building. The actual bridge will be East Indian Rosewood but since I have a lot more Walnut than Rosewood I wanted to make certain my design would work so that lead to a practice bridge.
David
Here's the finished bridge -
Attachment 365026
And here's a video of the entire process -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzLtbaXkuMY
Very cool ! Out of curiosity why did you not do the full 3D shaping of the bridge on the CNC ?
Thanks, Anthony! Two reasons, really... the main reason is that I just truly enjoy shaping wood by hand so the aesthetic portion, to me anyway, is better done by touch. The critical cuts of saddle slots and pin holes were better achieved by the CNC. The back profile curve could have been done by hand but I figured 'why not' and did it on the CNC. The second reason is that holding the bridge in place to cut the wings would have been yet another 'clamp move' and would only have saved the bandsaw step. I would still have to sand it after the CNC cut the wings. But for consistency I may see what I can do on future bridges to cut more on the CNC - there's still plenty of other hand work in building a guitar.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony Scira
David
Way too heavy on the bass side. WEIGHT is your enemy on making a bridge. A heavy bridge will lose some of the delicate-vibrating overtones. That loses tone. I use the old fashioned small "pyramid" bridges,which were used on good old time instruments.
You're gaining nothing by making that bridge massive like that. Do you want "cool" or TONE?
Thanks, George, and you're correct. That's one reason for the practice but it isn't as large as you might think. And I still have it at the full 3/8" thickness of the blank; that will be cut down on the real bridge. I also left at least 1/16" on the soundhole side, in front of the saddle slots, to be trimmed off on the final version of the real bridge. No sir, I want tone but it can look good in the process. I think the largish looking 'swell' part of the curve on the back makes it look larger than it really is.
Here it is compared to my Takamine, which is by no means in the class with finer handmade boutique guitars but it still sounds pretty good (though not as good as my Martin, Gallagher, Guild, etc.). The front edges are lined up in this photo, btw.
David
Attachment 365188
That was fun to watch!
Hey, have you tried the Stewart McDonald scrapers? I bought a set and I really like them - I don't build guitars but I use them on woodturnings and carvings.
http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools...e_Scraper.html
JKJ
Thanks, John! It was fun to make both the bridge and the video. No, I have seen the StewMac scrapers but I have a set of Sandvik that I've used for about 25 years (maybe more!). The StewMac scrapers look pretty stout - may have to try them at some point.Quote:
Originally Posted by John K Jordan
David
If you DO want your guitar to sound as good as the others you mentioned,start wityh making the bridge smaller. Of course, this is only ONE of many things that make a fine sounding guitar. That Takamine does not have a SPRUCE top!!!
Nope. It has a gorgeous Curly Koa top and it suits my needs perfectly playing in our Praise Band at church.Quote:
Originally Posted by george wilson
Are you playing it through an amp? Martin made an all koa guitar years ago.
I plug into a DI box which is plugged into our Allen & Heath digital board at church. Acoustically the Takamine can't hold a candle to my other guitars but plugged in the Takamine electronics are excellent and this guitar sounds great (it sounds ok acoustically, though, just not exceptional). I don't want electronics in my other guitars so that's why I bought the Takamine.Quote:
Originally Posted by george wilson
Ok, I made another bridge, smaller this time. The first one is 32 grams and this one is 20 grams. This is the size I intended it to be but the first one was more about testing my CNC programs. This one is more about getting the size correct. Yes, I could have done this all in the same bridge but I like making them and I have a ton of small Walnut pieces on which to practice.
Here's the one I made this afternoon, on top of the first one (the leading edge is lined up and they are the same length - camera parallax factor comes into play) -
Attachment 365376
And here they are as a comparison; you can see how much smaller the one made today is -
Attachment 365375