Bridge contouring

[Tony_in_NYC]

I don't get what he is doing to the bridge contour either. Maybe he is bad at explaining what he means. He also said a high saddle means you can play louder, when it really means higher action and so possibly less string buzz when beating on the guitar. Another example of poor explaining skills? Maybe he knows how to do the repair but does not know the theory behind it? Who knows. He might be the best repairman in the country.

[deadedith]

Thanks for that Rick

[Darryl Young]

I may change my mind with more experience......but my thoughts tend to go along with RDs. I like the thought of building everything to one standard so when I use a 28' radius, I want the top and the braces at that radius. The bridge is the heaviest brace on the guitar and I want it the same radius as the other braces.

Seems where there is a little wiggle room is the top will move with RH changes so things may be out of whack if you aren't controlling RH where the guitar and bridge are stored.

I used a short piece of eastern red cedar 2x4 and radiused it in my dish then put sandpaper on that block to radius my bridge. When I placed the bridge on the soundboard, it matched perfectly. I then scraped the bridge with a razor blade (as RD describes) right before glueing for a fresh glue surface.

If I put the correct radius on the bottom of a bridge and then placed it on the soundboard and it did NOT match........I would stop and give a lot of thought about my process and storage climate and try to determine what is happening.

[kencierp]

Laminating the flat "hardwood" bridge plate to the sound board will distort the thin "softwood" top most every time --even if you try and crush it into a radius dish with go bars. Therefore, I custom sand the bridge to match the top contour. Plus after you glue another layer of wood to the bottom of the brace the contour radius is larger -- admittedly a tiny difference.

[deadedith]

Good stuff. But whatever our procedures up to the point of contouring that bridge, we are working with a particular, one-off top. That top does not care what we've done to that point : it wants a particular bridge contour and nothing else will make it happy.
So I do try to make as many of my procedures as possible - mechanical, repeatable, foolproof. But still, if the top ain't happy, ain't nothin' happy. So I finish the contour on the top.

[Tony_in_NYC]

I was never very good at trivia anyway.

[deadedith]

Me neither, though I enjoy La Triviata, which I think is Italian for trivia. Not sure.