Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm in mid-task of making a pair of bridges, and a saddle I bought shows some taper in height from low-E to high-E. I came across a comment somewhere that Martin tapers their bridges to correspond with the saddle taper. Is the bridge taper commonly done? I'm trying to make my bridges appear to be storebought, not the work product of a hermit-in-the-basement.

Thanks, folks.

Appreciate the comments and advice.

_________________
Peter Havriluk

I think most do to give a more uniform saddle height. You are wise to stick to convention unless you have a clear design goal!

_________________
Pat

Bridges are tapered toward the treble side in an effort to improve the break angle of the strings over the saddle on the treble side.

Guitars are set-up with the treble strings around 33% lower than the bass strings and this reduces the break angle of the treble strings over the saddle if the bridge is the same height all the way across. Reduce the height on the treble side of the bridge, increase the break angle and great set-ups remain possible until very nearly neck reset time.

It's a good idea to taper the height of a bridge toward the treble side.

Thanks for the insights - - - I agree that sticking to convention is a wise path to follow, especially while learning. The one deviation (gotta make the work unique to me, he says hopefully) is that I intend to set the bridge pins in a line parallel to the saddle, so (1) the bridge isn't structurally weaked by a whole lot of holes on the same grain line and (2) break angle is closer to consistent across all the strings. I haven't seen any offered for sale like this and I'm guessing I'm adding a step.

_________________
Peter Havriluk

Arguably convention is a tapered bridge. We are not comparing our work to f*ctories or in my view should not be. We can and should do better. Lots of small f*ctories and boutique builders taper our bridges. I did it on the guitars that I built, lots of builders do it, and we also do it on the bridges that we make as replacements in our repair world.

Rift sawn bridge blanks help as well in terms of not placing all bridge pins on the same gain line. Good thinking on your part!

I once started a thread about 10 years ago titled "why are bridges shaped as they are." I didn't know..... All manner of hell broke out with differing experiences and opinions all over the place. Two individuals in particular went at each other with a vengeance not seen since on this forum.

Be careful asking about bridges... Kidding of course. Good questions.

The Gibson reverse belly bridge comes to mind. What a bold new engineering design that was

Maybe it depends on your perspective?

Lot of bridges burned?

we ought to form a bridge club

_________________
"I need to hurry up, the years are going by far too fast"

Why do I hear Bridge Over Troubled Water playing in my head....

i knew it, i knew it

_________________
"I need to hurry up, the years are going by far too fast"

You will be in good company - many of Martin's lower-end guitars in Style 16, Road Series, X-Series, and the older DR & DM guitars use pin lines that are parallel to an angled saddle. If you prefer a pyramid-style bridge, Stewart MacDonald sells one with pin line parallel to saddle.

There seem to be few truly new, good ideas - most have already been tried and become common practice, or tried and been discarded, forgotten, and later rediscovered or reinvented (e.g., the Wedge body). The flip side of this notion is that there has never been a really, really bad idea that did not have vociferous adherents and ardent defenders, so while good ideas may come and go, bad ones seem to stick around forever!

_________________
A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

What comes unstuck but sticks around forever?............. the idea of leaving a wide perimeter of bridge unglued so anyone can stick it down and have it look nice.

When Martin makes them, they are the bridges of Northampton County.

........................and before they're glued on, they are "bridges to nowhere".

Bridges? We don't need no stinking bridges!

I think I might be going a bridge too far. Time to saddle up and return to previously scheduled programming...

_________________
Peter Havriluk

Good word - saddle, remember when Mongo was farting in Blazing Saddles?

Wife and I have a ceaseless and insoluble debate about Mel Brooks' movies. She thinks Blazing Saddles is his best work. Not a chance. The Producers.

_________________
Peter Havriluk

I dunno, my vote goes to Young Frankenstein. But I enjoy them all for different reasons.

I make Martin style bridges that taper on the treble side just like the actual Martin ones do. I actually have a customer that wants to do like you and have the pins follow the angle of saddle slot as well but he's looking to have them that way for a consistent break angle for the strings. No reason other than aesthetics to do it however you like.

_________________
http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

I included the idea of a consistent break angle in my bridge thinking. Seems like a decent enough idea but I also have no idea whether I will achieve a whole lot, as the strings vary so much in diameter. I think it can't hurt an pins that are parallel to the frets seem to be addressing the break angle backwards; the smallest strings have the least break angle and the largest strings the greatest break angle.

_________________
Peter Havriluk

Mr. Alan Carruth has done some work that suggests that - as long as the string break angle is between a minimum angle needed to keep the vibrating string on the saddle and some very large maximum value, there is little difference in observed performance. This suggests to me that, other than for purely cosmetic considerations (and with a little ramping), just about anything goes.

_________________
A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

In my world we are often tasked with setting up an instrument that has an under set neck usually due to age. Neck resets can become a beneficial thing for older instrument and I have even see guitars under five years old from major producers that would benefit. I've also seen Luthier built instruments that had the neck set initially at either too much or not enough angle. Neck angles are critical to quality!

Anyway the point that I wanted to make is that the value in my thinking of a tapered bridge, lower on the treble side is not any specific break angle or even the appearance of homogenous break angles for all the strings. The value in my experience is to have any break angle at all when in time the neck is under set, not time for a neck reset yet or it's economically not feasible but we still want the instrument capable of being set-up well.

I can't tell you how many times the saddle has to be taken down to almost nothing proud of the bridge to get acceptable action.

Of course we always want to keep the music playing so it's our jobs when our clients may not be able to afford a neck reset or the instrument doesn't make sense to invest in to still be able to squeeze out some value (and fun) from it.

Just for discussion sake when there is not enough saddle left for a decent break angle and the vibrating wave of the string breeches the saddle crown just like with a nut slot cut too shallow through the years various remedies have been employed. Some pretty OK and some not so OK....

Shaving bridges was and is one approach which since there are no real absolutes in Lutherie can be beneficial or can be hack work depending on who's doing it, how well it's being done and if it's suitable for the instrument. I might take 30 thou off an import's bridge to help a client out and to stay in line with a limited budge. I would not do this to a pre-war Martin.... or a Lemon Grove Taylor.

String ramps that can be seen on some of the 15 series Martins if you want to see what they look like can also be added to a bridge to increase break angle. This is a frequent solution that we do but again only when appropriate for the instrument.

In other words a slightly tapered bridge where the taper likely will not ever even be noticed by the player is in my opinion a bit of a hedge against the need in time for 1) a neck reset in the delaying it sense, not preventing it... and 2) needing to shave a bridge and 3) having to make string ramps.

With this said when we taper our bridges we may get an immediate benefit in break angles which may or may not be of any benefit at all... but more importantly we add a degree of "serviceability" to the instrument for the future.

And that my friends, serviceability is also value in so much as the investment in a serviceable instrument is an investment that's far more likely to provide value over a longer period of time.

You might want to try something one day. Sit down with your favorite poison (beverage....) with one of your guitars in front of you. Starting say at the head stock consider the entire guitars and list on paper the things that you did and do to add value and serviceability to the instrument. I am not speaking or a pretty rosette or fret board inlays.

I am speaking of things such as tapering the bridge, rabbiting the bridge, orientation of bridge plates, what's rift cut, what's not, are frets glued in, is the nut custom made of bone and well done, is the bone unbleached and 10% harder.

Where I am going with this is for individual Luthiers we have some disadvantages in that we are only one person, usually.... We die and our warranty is useless when some competitors are million dollar companies with over 100 years of documented support for clients. How do we compete with that?

We go to our list of what we do that differentiates ourselves from the pack and usual suspects and if you must have this all tied back up nice and neat... tapering bridges in one very small but important thing that any of us can do that adds value over time and increases the "serviceability quotient....." of our creations.

Sorry for being pedantic... sometimes it's my nature. Serviceability quotient is a term that just kind of materialized as I wrote this. Seems to me that it might be a good way for folks who build guitars to think.