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I remember reading a long while ago about someone ( i think it was Colin?) who puts a thin piece of bone on the bridge plate to help prevent or repair wear. I am not concerned so much about the wear issue but about the effect on tone it has. Do any of you do this? and if so what are the changes you noticed in tone ( brighter, more trebles?)

Also another question that I've had for a while is if you use a pinless bridge can you get away with using spruce for the bridge plate? I may try and use a pinless bridge for the next one ( and maybe even incorporate a bone veneer where the string ends sit) so I am curious about what the experience anyone has in these areas.

I don't think i'll be able to start another one for a year or more so I think i'll use this time to build up my luthiery knowledge

Matt

Matt, you memory serves you well. It was Colin. Maybe he will chime in here and give his observations.

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Aoibeann

I wouldn't think that the little bit of bone would affect tone too much...probably not noticeable unless you have bat ears.

As for the spruce bridge plate, I don't see why you couldn't do it. Spruce instead of rosewood should result in more treble response (since you are adding more stiffness than mass). Just keep in mind that spruce is actually not as stiff as something like EIR, so you should probably use a thicker piece of spruce than you would rosewood in order to maintain the same structural integrity. In order to ensure that the spruce part is the same stiffness as your normal rosewood part, the thickness should be about 1.25 times the thickness of the rosewood part (rosewood is about 25% stiffer than spruce).

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http://www.PeakeGuitars.com

Matt,

yes Colin is the "boneman".

I used a spruce bridgeplate on a Cedar/maple guitar of maine (a favourite) that had a pinless bridege. The sound is fabulous although how much is due to the spruce bridgeplate is impossible to say.. The bridgeplate was around 2.5mm thick and the grain orientation was parallel with the cedar top. The guitar is nearly three years old now and structurally everything is fine:

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Yes I have used a thin bone plate for the ball ends to bear against on all of my guitars for some years now. Yes it does have an effect on the tone, even with human ears. The nice thing is that you can take the plate out or put it in as you wish when changing strings to try the effect, I have always believed that it aids the transmission of string energy to the top. It makes sense to me, we don't use a maple or rosewood saddle or nut, the other string bearing points, we use bone. So I like to have the string in contact with the guitar using bone nut, saddle, pins and bridge plate.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

thanks all for the input so far, so I think I'll try the bone veneer thing out on my first build just to see what differences I notice.

so has anybody combined the two ideas and used spruce for the bridgeplate on a bridge with pins with either a bone veneer or perhaps a small hardwood one to protect the bridgeplate? if it was a bit thicker to account for stiffness it seems like it could work. perhaps a small bit of inlaid rosewood or maple in the spruce just where the string ends would be in contact might work as well.

thats just me thinking out loud but has anybody done this?

Matt,

You mean like this:



John How does this on his ladder braced guitars too.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010