Attaching Bridges

[tippie53]

I actually do not radius the bridge , Martin doesn't either. When you think about it , the top is moving in constant changed to RH. You put a curve to the bridge and you over stress the top in dry weather , I have seen the top crack on the side of the bridge wings.
I guess it wont matter much what you do as long as you get a good joint. I used to do this but I didn't really see any advantage to it.
As for the set screw a 10/32 set screw will fit a 3/16 hole very well. They don't mark up the sides of the hole and beside you should be tapering the hole for the pins as of you do put a mark in , that will be gone. When you glue a bridge the glue tends to come up into the hole and if you have a pin in there, it is a pain to get out. The set screw will thread out of the glue very nicely.

[rienk]

That's just what I do. I take a piece of 150 and tape it to the top and sand over the bridge location top to bottom not side to side.

I wonder if we're thinking about two different things here?
Top to bottom seems like it would make almost no difference compared to side to side.
In an extreme case, an 8" long bridge on a 15' radius top would have a .044" differential from flat; something that can easily be sanded out. Whereas a 2" wide bridge on a 25' radius top has less than .002" differential - which is probably nothing to worry about.
Thus, if you're going to sand at all, you would want to make sure the center of the bridge bottom is sanded out, so that the wings come in contact with the top... it seems like a convex sanding block is the easiest way to do this, but if you use sand paper between the bridge and the top, you would want to focus on the center, probably pulling the paper from top to bottom... is that what you are describing?

[Ben-Had]

That's just what I do. I take a piece of 150 and tape it to the top and sand over the bridge location top to bottom not side to side.

I wonder if we're thinking about two different things here?
Top to bottom seems like it would make almost no difference compared to side to side.
In an extreme case, an 8" long bridge on a 15' radius top would have a .044" differential from flat; something that can easily be sanded out. Whereas a 2" wide bridge on a 25' radius top has less than .002" differential - which is probably nothing to worry about.
Thus, if you're going to sand at all, you would want to make sure the center of the bridge bottom is sanded out, so that the wings come in contact with the top... it seems like a convex sanding block is the easiest way to do this, but if you use sand paper between the bridge and the top, you would want to focus on the center, probably pulling the paper from top to bottom... is that what you are describing?

A picture is worth a thousand words. I'll be fitting the bridge tomorrow or Wednesday on the guitar in this thread (viewtopic.php?f=48&t=5696&start=80) and it'll be easier to see it there than me to explain it.