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On this classical guitar I decided to try no bridge patch to see if lends itself to want I want to hear. My last one, with a bridge patch, seemed a bit choked if not too focused? Top is .105, 1/4" tall braces( middle three) like the last one. I'm thinking of going with an ebony bridge? Too much dampening with ebony?

Clinton

Ebony is not a good choice for a classical bridge, IMO. Yes, too much damping. A rosewood bridge of any kind would be better, and lighter. How wide are your braces? Is the top .105 in the center and thinner at the edges? Spruce or Cedar? Is it stiff or floppy? What size lower bout? No bridge patch is not a problem, ever! 1/4" is not too bad for center fans if they are narrow, like 1/8" or so. If they are wider, then 1/4 is going to be pretty high, I think. Torres bracing patterns are 7 mm wide and 3 mm high or just under 1/8 ". My center braces are about 1/4" or 6 mm high but they are only about 3 - 4 mm wide, depending on the top stiffness.

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Waddy

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One of the best guitars I've built to date has an ebony bridge so I don't quite know what to tell ya. This guitar had a bridge patch. Rosewood is certainly more traditional, if that helps

Interesting! Was it particularly lightly built? I guess I should be less adamant about such things. Some of my best have Cocobolo bridges that are way too heavy by most standards. However, I have not built with a bridge patch yet.

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Waddy

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It depends on the weight of the bridge.
.105 & 1/4"tall braces ?
This could be a problem also.
Is the top graduated in thickness like Waddy asked?
How wide are those braces?

A bridge patch is part of an overall design.
You must design the top & braces to work with the patch.


Mike

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Mike Collins

Yes, the (Lutz) plate is thinned out on the sides, .105 in the middle only. I haven't gotten to where I want to be yet, so I'm not sure where it'll end up. I should of been more clear on the braces, 1/4 " on the middle brace only. And that's under the bridge and thins down in front and behind the bridge area. The two fans on either side of the center fan starts @ 3/16". Center 3 braces are 3/16" wide and the outer two a little thinner and no taller than 1/8 ". It's really close to Hauser or a Bogdanovich.

I don't know if I'm in the mood for experimenting with an ebony bridge.
I don't have a rosewood blank, what's the grain orientation I should look for in a bridge blank?

clinton

Think at a very small neck blank. Same grain, only that perfect quartering is not desired. Somewhere in between quarter and rift is perfect. When you look at the endgrain, the tilt should be towards the hole, like this if you look from the treble side:

endblock //////saddle/// hole neck.

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Build log

Oh and really please ditch the ebony idea. It should maybe work wonders on a low damping cedar top with low damping back and if you know how to control the weight of the bridge in relation to the stiffness of the soundboard and all that voodoo, but for the average spruce top and without having too many CG builds under your belt, you'd really make yourself a favor by using a nice rosewood bridge. Find a not too fresh Madagascar rw blank from somewhere and ask them to pick a light one and to send it in a sealed bag. Weight it every day on a 1/100th gram scale while you do the binding and the fingerboard and all that, and if it doesn't lose weight you can use it.

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Clinton;
Alex gave you great advise.
go to www.rctonewoods.com
and get a lite in weight Indian bridge blank.
They had some great ones at the Woodstock show 2 weeks ago.

Mc

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Mike Collins

OK, thanks guys! I appreciate all the advise here at the OLF. I should probably confess, I cut up some really nice perfectly quartered white oak. I'm building a steel and a classical from it. I know, it's not the usual wood, but I like experimenting. clinton

It really is a light guitar actually, I don't weigh tops but I can tell by picking this one up. I strive to build light. Honestly at the time I built this guitar, some 15 years ago, I used ebony just because it looked good. Top is Cedar, back/sides Imbuia and neck Mahogany. The first ten years that I built guitars i sort of took the shotgun approach, just try shoot and hope to hit the target, maybe I got lucky that time and we didn't have the Internets to find wise sages, I had to climb the mountain, in the snow and gusty wind.

I'd never do it but it sure would be interesting to put a rosewood bridge on that guitar.

Still, the notion that ebony is not a first choice for a classical is far from being "internet wisdom". The high weight, the high damping and the brittleness of the wood are objective factors. With the odd exception, everyone seeks reasonably light and "musical" wood for the bridge.

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Build log

So other than rosewood, what are some other species that would fall into this category? clinton

Why is it so acceptable for steel string guitars then?

Clinton, you can try bubinga or padauk as well, but really it is hard to beat Indian in terms of price/look/quality, or Madagascar (while it lasts)


As for the ebony on steel strings...I realize that what "makes sense" is often much more simple that what happens in reality, but ebony makes sense on a steel strings guitar for me. You have this thick heavy stiff soundboard with very high tension strings. A heavier bridge seems to fit. Also ebony might actually filter out some treble noise and zing making a clearer and cleaner tone? Just guessing. I often see tiny rosewood bridges too, and every time I imagine these might have lighter soundboards to work well. At least for a classical the weight of the bridge is an important detail in shaping the tone and lowering the resonance points into place. A light bridge on a stiff soundboard can work towards a too thin bright tone.

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I believe I have read, in one or more of Alan's posts, that in a steel string the damping factor of Ebony is a good thing. The tendency is that it kills treble. In a classical that's a big problem, in a steel string, it's nice to kill some of that high end noise!

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Waddy

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