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Hi,

Is there any reason why I shouldn't use maple for a bridge? I have a piece of QS curly red maple that I was going to use on my current build- (all Koa with a small sapwood strip and maple binding). I thought it'd look good, but I haven't seen maple bridges before...possibly for a good reason? ...too soft? too dampening?

Thanks,
Ray.

Hi Ray,
I used sugar maple for the bridge on my Weissenborn-Style guitar because that's what Mr. Weissenborn used, and because It is very hard and dense. Mr. Weissenborn dyed his maple bridges black. I just sanded to 320 and rubbed on a little oil and was done with It. I considered using some curly big leaf maple but is wasn't dense enough in my opinion. I think most builders don't use maple for bridges for aesthetics reasons.

Alan Carruth has some interesting comments on using maple for bridges in a thread at the Acoustic Guitar Forum. Scroll to the very bottom of the page (link below).

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/foru ... p?t=218281

I'm sure some more experienced builders will share their thoughts soon.

Ron

I've used maple for bridges twice. It looks great IMO and the guitars sounded just fine. I finished with danish oil to give it some form of protection and ease of cleaning and re-apply of finish.

The biggest down side to using maple as a fretboard or bridge is keeping it looking the way it was when new. It shows dirt much quicker than dark woods of course.

I say go for it. Weigh the bridge after it's made and finished and see where it's at. 18-28g is desirable.

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Traditionally a darker wood is used for bridges and fingerboards, but heck, Fender used maple as fingerboards all the time and it seems to be fine, and no one before them used maple as fingerboards. Granted it's not really a fingerboard, but simply a one piece neck without a glued on fingerboard and slots cut into the radiused neck blank to hold the frets.

For bridges you want to use a fairly strong wood because there are quite a bit of force bearing against the saddle slot, especially when the saddle is poorly fitted and sitting at an angle.

Don't try to stain maple any other color, maple isn't an easy wood to stain, especially hard rock maple (which is what you will want to use, big leaf maple isn't dense enough). Put an oil or wax finish on it to keep stains out.

stay away from figured maple in this case... if you're using a maple neck in this guitar consider using a maple fretboard as well... a guitar with a different bridge and fingerboard wood just doesn't look right to me.

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I've used big leaf maple as a bridge, I also made the bridge plate a bit thicker.....it's a total system being designed so if you're going to go with a "less dense" wood for the bridge, compensate elsewhere for that.

Why would enyone making custom instruments fit a saddle poorly....?

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Thanks for your replies so far, very encouraging, and thanks for the link. I was always going to set the saddle back a bit, but the slot angle is a good idea as is the slightly thicker bridge plate beneath. Yes I have a maple fretboard for it as well. I'm a bit psyched about this one, it's my first all Koa and I think it'll look good, I just hope it sounds good too.