Experimental bridge questions

[LushTone]

So my idea is to try to blend an acoustic style bridge and a tunomatic. It will be for my Warmoth with a string through rout. My plan is to create a piece of wood in the shape of a tunomatic (narrow rectangle with rounded ends, holes for posts) and carve a custom bone saddle to fit within a slot in the wood.

Any thoughts on this experimental idea would be greatly appreciated! The guitar in question has a 25" scale and 12" radius btw. I plan to use a extra wide bone piece if I decide to carve it from scratch.

However, I am also toying with the idea of using a pre-shaped and compensated saddle. Would this be accurate (I want as much accuracy as possible) for a 25" scale guitar with 10-46 strings?

 

[alterbridgefan]

Okay. With an acoustic guitar, intonation doesn't need to be great. The subtleties and overtones all combine to make a sound that is overall musical...

With an electric, you either want to nail the intonation or get pretty damn close.

That said, sounds like a cool idea! And the Compton bridges get excellent reviews, so you could make it work.

 

[Cagey]

I suspect a piece of wood carved that narrow and only suspended on the ends is going to be far too absorbent to function as an effective bridge. If it withstood the tension once it was strung up, I'd wonder how long it would hold. While it did hold, the guitar would sound deader than... something really dead. I've seen real metal TOMs sag under the tension, sometimes to the point where they break.

Then, as Altar mentioned, you really want to be able to adjust intonation on an electric. It's much more obvious when they're out of tune. That's tough to do with a bone strip.

I'm curious why you'd want to do this in the first place.

Another member (Scartozi, who hasn't been around for a while) had an idea to create an acoustic/electric style hybrid that worked out quite well. I think Updown and myself were the only ones to use them, though. Anyway, he based it on the shape of a typical wood acoustic bridge and had Doug machine it out of metal. Then, we installed standard saddles so as to get the intonation function and the ability to match up string radius to neck radius. I had two made - this is one of them [thread] ...

I also had a brass one made, which I put on a different Tele [thread]...

That brass unit is bright, Bright, BRIGHT! That's is one raucous guitar.

 

[Nightclub Dwight]

Doesn't Bagman's Les Paul Custom have a bridge sort of like an acoustic/electric hybrid?

 

[Cagey]

Yeah. But, his has a regular TOM that's mounted on a wood acoustic-style base. Not sure that's a good idea, either, but it's better than making the bridge itself out of wood.

 

[pabloman]

Just flush mount the bridge. Use a two piece slanted saddle like a takamine. I've kickin this kind of idea around for a long time. Someone once posted a picture of a Les Paul with an area built up out of the maple cap into a bridge with a saddle in it. Really sexy stuff.

 

[DustyCat]

Even a guitar equipped with a wooden bridge is still +1 ( :doh: EDIT: more resonant and with more sustain) ahead of any violin, cello, or upright bass (no frets/no metal bridge/no metal strings)...played pizzacato, of course.

I think its an idea worth exploration.

:guitarplayer2:

 

[Updown]

There are these ...
http://www.guitarpartsresource.com/gbridge_wood.htm
or
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailpieces/Archtop_guitar_bridges.html

:dontknow:  Just for ideas ....

 

[drewfx]

Lots of jazz style deep hollowbodies have a tailpiece and a "floating" bridge. The bridge is not attached to the body, but is held down by the string tension, so you can adjust intonation somewhat by moving the bridge.

Example (Epiphone Joe Pass Emporer II):

 

[LushTone]

Thanks for all the input. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. The idea was to get a warm tone from the bone saddle, but not at a loss of function/intonation. It seems to be a daunting experiment.

But, I am interested by those archtop style bridges that Updown pointed out. However, would they work with a 25" scale guitar. I'm not very knowledgeable on intonating a guitar. Does the scale affect the adjustment of bridge saddles?

Not to mention that my guitar has the larger, 6mm studs, which won't fit these archtop bridges without modification.  :doh:

 

[Fat Pete]

It's even been done like this: http://www.lashbrookguitars.com/naturacoustic.html

Strength-wise, a nice piece of rosewood or similar probably beats a cheap mazak casting.

 

[LushTone]

It's even been done like this: http://www.lashbrookguitars.com/naturacoustic.html

Strength-wise, a nice piece of rosewood or similar probably beats a cheap mazak casting.

Hmm it's only a $300 bridge too!  :laughing7: Thanks for sharing that though, it's similar to what I'm after, but I want bone for the saddles.

 

[Fat Pete]

Yeah, very reasonable I thought...

There are also things like the ones here: http://www.musikkeller.com/mk/index.php?id=einzelteile&typ=stege&lang=en

 

[LushTone]

Yeah, very reasonable I thought...

There are also things like the ones here: http://www.musikkeller.com/mk/index.php?id=einzelteile&typ=stege&lang=en

Wow, that's basically what I'm after. Or the one after it that also adjusts the saddles. But, that website seems unusable..

 

[Fat Pete]

Just brush up on your German and send them an email.

I'm sure you could find similar on ebay etc

 

[LushTone]

Just brush up on your German and send them an email.

I'm sure you could find similar on ebay etc

Thanks for the tips. I'll start with ebay!

 

[Updown]

It's even been done like this: http://www.lashbrookguitars.com/naturacoustic.html

Strength-wise, a nice piece of rosewood or similar probably beats a cheap mazak casting.

From there site, I had a great laugh reading this ... http://www.lashbrookguitars.com/installation.html
Numbers 1 > 7

:laughing7:  :laughing3:  :laughing11:
Who takes there guitar on a canoe trip  :doh:

 

[Fat Pete]

Also nice to see a different sort of cookie warning on a website