Official Luthiers Forum!

When building a steel-string guitar, how common a practice is it to make the thickness of the bridge and/or the fretboard different on the bass side than the treble?

Is there any advantage in assembly, setup, fixturing and so forth from keeping everything flat and symmetric or is it just as easy to build in an arbitrary asymmetric geometry as part of your design?

I can see how, structurally, there seems to be a certain appeal in having the bridge higher on the bass side. That way you can have a more or less constant amount of saddle showing above the bridge while allowing the action to be higher on the big strings, as usual. Kind of like curving the top of the bridge to match the curve of the top of the saddle which matches the radius of the fretboard. Same idea.

I know some classical guitar makers make the string height over the soundboard (at the bridge) level and then actually have the bass side of the fretboard lower but I've never seen that on a steel-string. Or maybe I have but didn't notice because of the fretboard radius.

Brent: Fairly common practice to lower the height of the bridge on the treble side of the bridge on a steel string. I think it gives it a better look,leaving approximately an equal amount of saddle exposed.Also helps to drop a little bit of weight in an area that is very sensitive to weight reduction.Fingerboards on steel strings are not lowered more on the bass side then the treble side. At least not on the ones I've made.

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!