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I'm in the home stretch of my first build but was having trouble with making a bridge so a friend offered to help. What he gave me is a beautiful bridge made of Honduran rosewood but I want it to match the coloring of my east Indian rosewood fretboard. I was contemplating on using a stain but someone else suggested on sealing the bridge with a spit coat of shellac. From experience with sealing the rosewood trim on the body I know that this will darken the wood considerably. Is it okay to do on the bridge though? I understand that the underside/gluing surface must be bare wood so I will of course take precautions to block off that area. Are there any other reasons why I shouldn't do this?

I do it. I don't like ebony bridges, and rosewood doesn't look quite right to me if left unfinished.

I use the bridge fitting method where you tape a sheet of sandpaper to the guitar and rub the bridge on it. That clears off any shellac that may have gotten on the underside.

Just oil with some walnut oil or fretboard oil after it is installed. I do this as the last thing. You are going to clamp your bridge on to glue it, drill the holes through the top, ream the holes, slot for the strings (if you do that) etc. The bridge will have some slight scratches, imperfections from all the operations and need a final tune up. When all is said and done mask off the top, polish up the bridge, wipe on some oil and wipe off, Roberts your fathers brother. I wouldn't mess around with staining it. It is wood, let it be wood. It will look fine, it doesn't have to match exactly your fret board. If you oil both of them they will darken and be close enough in tone and color. Do a nice job and all will be and look fine.
L.

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

every cheap '50s-'60s-'70s classical i have ever seen had clearcoat over the rosewood bridges....certainly doesn't hurt, mechanically

....sorry, the comper is choked up as of late. some russian or chinese hacker is using it to do diabolical things, likely

Yeah I do it on my floating bridges for bouzoukis. I use one coat of a wiping varnish/oil varnish such as Liberon finishing oil. It makes it look noble and match the fretboard better. I suppose you could just use fretboard oil as well.

I hope so...............!!!

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

I just diacovered a cool technique and don't know why I didn't think of it before.
The last few builds, instead of shellac or finish on the bridge, I sanded the bare wood as I would a finish from 600 all the way up to 1500 then buffed it.

I am sold. Absolutlely love the look and feel of these bridges.

I don't know if that will help you or not, but I hope so.

Dave

That's what I've always done on rosewood or ebony, but for some reason I used TruOil on my maple bridges. The last one I did was a pinless maple bridge, and I left it unfinished but polished. Polishing to 1500 or higher really brings out the figure in curly maple, but not quite as much as an oil finish.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Make sure it's a oil type finish and not a thick finish such as lacquer... That G String uke with the painted bridge left a permanent stain on my iron when I tried to remove it.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I'm with Dave & Roger......... amazing how it will polish up, as these fingerboards show. (I actually go to 2000 before buffing) But nothing says you can't put a finish on.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Fender finishes their fingerboard if it's maple, and they do it with the frets already installed. When the frets are leveled and dressed the finish gets scratched off. Don't even bother trying to polish between the frets...

I guess you can do it for other fingerboard materials too. I'd say finish it after the frets go on because with a hard finish if you try to hammer frets into hard finish you might crack it.

By the way if you polish a fingerboard to 200 grit how do you keep the maple binding from turning black? I had this problem and the finer you go, the blacker the bindings get!

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

...the black is the abrasive particles from your sanding medium...use a higher quality mesh or paper... or make sure not to sand all the way through the clear coat

By the way in the last message I meant 2000 grit. I was using a very high quality sanding medium (3M sandpaper from Stewmac), and the black comes from the ebony dust that comes off during sanding and it would find its way into the maple binding for being so close to each other.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Nearly every classical guitar of every level of quality has finish on the bridge.

Nice looking boards Dave! Ebony does polish up better than maple. Did you do any king of sealing or pore filling on those boards? I usually start with a little shellac before final sanding/polishing.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

nyazzip wrote:
every cheap '50s-'60s-'70s classical i have ever seen had clearcoat over the rosewood bridges....certainly doesn't hurt, mechanically


Nearly every classical guitar of every level of quality has finish on the bridge.

...yeah i chose not to speak for expensive instruments because i have really never closely inspected one or spent much quality time with one. my point was, the japanese factory instruments held up swimmingly through the past 50-60 years, so finishing the bridge can't be a bad thing. and don't even tell me a laquer on a bridge affects sound.
my hands sweat profusely; on a stage under pressure and hot lights(not that it has happened often), even more. if my wooden bridges were unfinished, that would be all i could think about, is how much grime and salt water they were drinking up: yes, hard oily woods polish up nicely for a few weeks or months, but people, please coat them with something.