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Question about bridges

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  • BucoBuco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce
    Posts: 5,026
    Will,
    show us this unique guitar man.
    Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
  • Lango-DjangoLango-Django Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator
    Posts: 1,875
    Sorry to be slow on this, Buco, but I'm in the middle of a big project right now. I'll get some pictures together later, hopefully today.
    Paul Cezanne: "I could paint for a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."

    Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."

    Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
  • BucoBuco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce
    Posts: 5,026
    Oh hey no hurry. I just got a little excited when I realized how cool your guitar is.
    Whenever you get around to it.
    Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
  • JazzaferriJazzaferri Victoria B.C.Moderator Dunn Ultrafox, DuPont MDC20 Gretsch Chet Atkins CG
    Posts: 3,707
    Not to put any pressure on...but I too am interested to see it.
    The Magic really starts to happen when you can play it with your eyes closed
  • Lango-DjangoLango-Django Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator
    Posts: 1,875
    OK, I'm finally getting onto this… I couldn't do it yesterday because I FINALLY achieved my New Year's resolution of several years standing--- CLEANING UP MY WORKSHOP!!! Hooray for me!!!

    As long as I'm doing this, I'll just go ahead enclose pictures of both my 2006 Michael Dunn oval hole and my 2013 Castellucia F-hole, A/K/A: "Fat Man" and "Little Boy"… apologies to any Japanese readers out there for the sick joke...

    793b65097ee74b08699093a6d78d93.jpg6fc9fe312a0b45e934c961dfab0a1a.jpg
    336ac20037110dcbc76b773cce1412.jpg00c5a2d3a6c5459edeb9cebda96806.jpg
    bb13de7344189bfda4ab643d2f7d39.jpg

    BTW, all the empty hooks you see in the photos would normally be occupied by my (ahem) b####s… but last time I posted a picture including these instruments I got 'told' by Mr. Horowitz himself...

    Will
    Paul Cezanne: "I could paint for a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."

    Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."

    Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
  • Jeff MooreJeff Moore Minneapolis✭✭✭✭ Lebreton 2
    edited January 2014 Posts: 476
    Those are beautiful guitars, wish you were nearby!
    Jazzaferri has it! Taping sandpaper to the top is the technique!
    I use medium grit cuz I'm lazy and it cuts faster (100 grit) but no big deal. If you do this, you will achieve the mating of bridge to the arch. There's bound to be arch on both your guitars. It's highly unlikely that your new bridge is seated. More likely is that if you don't do it, the new bridge will make its own dents in the top from pressure and motion of the strings. You don't want this! Makes seating any other new bridge next to impossible.
    a. Every new bridge needs to be seated this way to get the string energy into the guitar top and to keep from denting the top. The top wood is much softer than your bridge, so the bridge (rosewood) will dent the top (spruce) rather than the other way around and properly seating any bridge on a dented top becomes impossible without reshaping your top.

    Seat your bridge! then test new strings. Don't wait.
    b. You immediately see sawdust exactly where the bridge touches first and also, how much doesn't touch.
    c. don't rock the bridge as you sand back and forth, keep it firmly seated down on the sandpaper. In fact, a twisting motion is best as this rocks least. Left side moving forward and right side moving the other way so the bridge is moving in the shape of a bow tie.

    I don't like talking about fixing guitars in print because technique is hard to write out and misunderstanding is easy without seeing it done. But seeing those guitars and seeing the questions you were asking at the outset has me feeling like someone should chime in for the sake of your sound and proper care of nice guitars.
    A seated bridge might radically improve the sound and save your top. A new bought bridge is so unlikely to match any particular top that you should never just buy a bridge and slap it on. And you simply can't know what your guitar is suppose to sound like if the bridge is digging into the top only at a bit here and there. Sorry if I sound like a prig!
    Hope this helps.
    "We need a radical redistribution of wealth and power" MLK
  • JazzaferriJazzaferri Victoria B.C.Moderator Dunn Ultrafox, DuPont MDC20 Gretsch Chet Atkins CG
    edited January 2014 Posts: 3,707
    Wow Will...what beaut...love the rosette.

    I use 220 and then finish with 400... Just like I do with furniture. Looking at wood sanded with 120-150 grit under magnification there is more space than wood at the peaks.
    The Magic really starts to happen when you can play it with your eyes closed
  • Jeff MooreJeff Moore Minneapolis✭✭✭✭ Lebreton 2
    Posts: 476
    Jazzaferri
    Your right.
    "We need a radical redistribution of wealth and power" MLK
  • BucoBuco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce
    Posts: 5,026
    Jeff Moore wrote: »
    c. don't rock the bridge as you sand back and forth, keep it firmly seated down on the sandpaper. In fact, a twisting motion is best as this rocks least. Left side moving forward and right side moving the other way so the bridge is moving in the shape of a bow tie.

    This is what I had the trouble with and this is a really neat tip to make sure bottom of the bridge follows the contour of the guitar top.
    Thanks.

    Wow Will, that's a nice looking guitar. Cool fret markers!

    The luthier that made my guitar, Risto Ivanovski, made a few Selmer copies without a cutout. He said that he thought they have a better bass response like that.
    0.jpg
    That's him with one of those
    Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
  • Lango-DjangoLango-Django Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator
    Posts: 1,875
    Thanks for the tip, Jeff, I followed your directions and it worked out fine.

    Anyway, I can officially report that sanding the bridge to follow the exact contour of the top makes almost zero difference in the sound!
    Paul Cezanne: "I could paint for a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."

    Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."

    Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
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