Official Luthiers Forum!

I was just wondering if everyone matched their fingerboards to the bridge? or do you mix it up.

The reason I ask is I made a dumba#* mistake and I need to order a new bridge (Pau Ferro) I like to match them, but I have a different bridge laying around (IR) and I thought about using it. I hate to order a $3.00 bridge and have to pay $9.00 shipping. Just wondering.

Well, it depends. Pics? Myself I try to match the bridge to the headplate, since I always use ebony for the FB. Pao Ferro is light brown, the bridge probably purplish...might not work.

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Build log

I don't think that the IR would be too bad a match with the Pau Ferro if it's on the redder side. The IR blanks I have are all over the place.

As a classical builder, the constraints are more severe - fretboards are ebony, bridges are Brazilian, and I have so far used the B&S wood for the headplate.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I like um to match.But what to do with a maple board? I just finished a dread with a rosewood board and was going to use a macassar bridge but it didn't look good so i went with BRW instead to get a better match.

I think that they should either match or they should not match. If you can get them to match, great. If you can't get a very good match, however, you should make them very different. The worst thing is to try to match and fail. ie Make your mistakes look intentional.

After looking at it for awhile the IR just didn't look right, to purple, so I went ahead and ordered a replacement