Official Luthiers Forum!

I don't see this as a solution looking for a problem. Failed bridge plates are a fairly common occurance on older instruments. Stainless steel or brass might not be the right material, but a thin (.020") piece of titanium might work perfectly fine.

A few years ago Martin Simpson had a signature model guitar slide, which he claimed was made of "un-obtainium", maybe we need some of that.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

We better move fast though because I heard that un-obtainium, titanium, and fossilized Mastiff poop are going to be added to CITES this year.....

On the subject of causing damping by adding metal parts at the bridge, doesn't our buddy Charles Fox use cap screws and T-nuts for his bolt-on-bridges? His guitars sound great....

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

That's a good point Dave.After all, if metal was bad for damping, it wouldn't have been used as the main material on electric guitar bridges would it? Oh, and a thin piece of stainless as a bridge plate would probably weigh less than a piece of crack-prone rosewood anyway right?