Fixed Bridge Designs for Maximum Sustain

[Cagey]

No. Acoustic instrument bodies should be as elastic as possible, not stiff.

Really? So, have you hung a 20" ring of spandex or a rubber inner tube from a nail and hit it with a tack hammer, then hung a 20" piece of iron from a nail and hit that? If so, which one seemed produce more sound and/or for a longer period of time? If you haven't, go try it right now and report back. We'll wait here.

I suspect you are being less than 100% serious, but not everyone may realize this.

Elasticity is a property that defines a material's ability to return to its original state after being deformed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(physics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young's_modulus

STOP CONFUSING THE ISSUE WITH FACTS!

 

[Cagey]

The more comfortable line is purely opinion, so I don't agree with that one.  The filtering things electronically is sort of true, but why bother if you can just use the wood that sound the way you like to begin with?  Just to have it there?  Cagey, as a person who is on record of liking only one volume knob, why bother if you can get the sound without electronics?  Just to have the option of potentially using that sound?  Even if it is a sound that you don't find desirable?  I understand putting controls on the guitar that you use, but having 30 more knobs and switches and related electronics that you never touch is worthless.  Warm is not dead either.  Generally it is more mid emphasis, not brittle ear piecing highs that the harder wood tend to impart.  And while you can effect frequency with electronics, the response of the guitar will change with the less rigid woods (like attack of notes)  Dead, on the other hand, is just flat out a sponge with strings.  So I disagree with your argument on a number of points.  It just seems to me you are over engineering a tool because you can, not for the need.

I suspect you are being less than 100% serious, but not everyone may realize this. Now,

Get off my lawn!​

 

[Patrick from Davis]

No I am serious, sort of.  If you call an active eq, "synthesis," well okay, but basses use synths all the time to boost freq's then.  And if we were to be absurd, just build guitars out of, aluminum, or steel, or carbon fiber, or inconel, or titanium, or tungsten.  You can use electronics to mess with the eq, but they will still behave differently sonically.  If you are building a swiss army knife guitar, okay, then yeah have the highs there.  However, the original poster is going to use BKP nailbombs, so I am guessing a metal guitar.  Make the body out of mahogany, and the neck out of what ever you like (I'd go with Wenge, but that is me.  I like the stuff)  I'd put a recessed TOM in it and call it a day.  Would you really get much of a difference in sustain if you changed to any of the combos in previously posts?  I doubt it'd be noticeable if the neck is on tight.  Two other points, Ken at Roadhouse makes a mean humbucker if you ask him for one like the seven string pickup he makes (I like mine better than the Nailbomb, but they are in the same sonic area, just a lot cheaper from Roadhouse), and the car shouldn't have a chop top, flames, or one of those stupid fins on the back of it.  Looks proper in that picture...
Patrick

 

[Dan025]

elasticity and rigidity aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. springs are made from very hard metal. ductility and maliability are however inverse of elasticity.  with acousic instruments a more rigid material leads to thinner parts which are actually looser than thicker softer parts. so everyone is right. no need to fight about it. hard materials are either elastic or brittle, but even a "brittle" material is likely to be elastic enough to resonate and make a good acoustic material. even hardened cast iron or tempered glass aren't too inelastic to make noise without breaking.

of coarse those are just generalizations of mechanical properties. there is a whole other world of acoustic properties. things like particle velocity, wave velocity, different types of acoustic impedance ect,ect.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

The '59 Les Paul is often the poster child for sustain.  Having no access to a '59 LP, I can't comment per se.  However, I have played plenty of plain vanilla Les Pauls, as well as many other Mahogany set neck'd 24 3/4" scale guitars.  My observation, a maple neck'd 25.5" scale bolt on neck sustains better, or atleast longer.  The '59 Les Paul example is nostalgia and often has a 100 watt Marshall pushing the sustain.

Sustain is not the end all be all.  There are many things at play on an electric, and 2 that are often used synonymously like they're the same are resonance and sustain.  If a guitar is sustaining more, it's resonating less, and vice versa.   

 

[drewfx]

elasticity and rigidity aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. springs are made from very hard metal. ductility and maliability are however inverse of elasticity.  with acousic instruments a more rigid material leads to thinner parts which are actually looser than thicker softer parts. so everyone is right. no need to fight about it. hard materials are either elastic or brittle, but even a "brittle" material is likely to be elastic enough to resonate and make a good acoustic material. even hardened cast iron or tempered glass aren't too inelastic to make noise without breaking.

of coarse those are just generalizations of mechanical properties. there is a whole other world of acoustic properties. things like particle velocity, wave velocity, different types of acoustic impedance ect,ect.

Yes, you can get resonance out of almost anything given enough input, but the point is you want it to be efficient.

But we are veering off topic, so I'm going to move on.

 

[JPilot]

Thanks for all the input. After looking around, I think I've narrowed the bridge choice down to two options - both ABM products.

http://www.allparts.com/SB-0104-002-ABM-Gold-Non-Tremolo-Bridge_p_3214.html

with these saddles:
http://graphtech.com/products/brands/string-saver/product-detail/ps-8002-l0-string-saver-originals-strat-elite-right-handed?id=1a59140a-acc5-4327-b66b-e109ffd78722

Pros: Massive, small string length beyond saddle
Cons: Saddles do not lock down to the bridge. Saddles contain springs.

or

This bridge:
http://www.allparts.com/SB-5110-010-Non-Tremolo-Bridge-Chrome_p_3276.html

with these saddles:

http://graphtech.com/products/brands/string-saver/product-detail/ps-8200-00-string-saver-originals-wilkinson-vs100-saddles?id=cb7d0aa8-e953-43e9-b942-0a8b3f02f542

Pros: Saddles lock to bridge
Cons: String travels through body and gets crimped at the bridge point (this might not be a con - let me know if my thinking is flawed).

These saddles are low friction, which will increase sustain. But they are low mass, so they will resonate more, reducing sustain. Also, I prefer the tone of metal saddles. Graphtech makes these:

http://graphtech.com/products/brands/string-saver/product-detail/pg-8001-0c-string-saver-classics-strat-tele-style-offset-saddles---chrome?id=2f9cae12-85c4-4956-a9ce-f79f0a08285c

But they won't fit either bridge.

Solution: Mask off the metal saddles and spray the string contact area with Teflon paint.

http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/metal-prep-coloring/paint-finishes/bake-on-aerosol-paints/teflon-moly-oven-cure-gun-finish-prod1145.aspx?source=ir

But... How hard is the Teflon paint? Will the paint absorb the string energy more than the light weight but extremely stiff Graphtech saddles will resonate?

Thoughts?

 

[Cagey]

Teflon isn't particularly hard stuff to begin with; I can't imagine being reduced to a rattle-can application improves it. It works in the Graphtech parts because it's a small part of a composite material. They're not Teflon parts, per se.

Speaking of Graphtech, if you can get saddles from them to match your bridge, you'll probably be very happy with them. I know I have been. The only drawback to them is price, but in the grand scheme of things it's not a big part of the cost of putting an instrument together.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

It is possible to over engineer by overthinking and over planning.  Don't paint.yourself in a corner with the latest and greatest thing that doesn't have several manufacturers of replacement or alternative parts; e.g. there are several makers of t-o-ms and Strat saddles.  A 2-tek or Tremking, if you don't love those, you're married to them.

 

[stubhead]

I'm kinda old = old enough to remember the 70's craze for heavy brass everything - whammys, knobs, nuts, it was quite customary to rout a little rectangle out of some of those old beat up junky Fenders and actually inlay a chunk of brass under the bridge... and - it didn't work at all. Heavy brass parts worked great on the "hippie sandwich" Alembic guitars made out of maple & purpleheart and rosewood. And really light little bent sheet metal bridge saddles and baseplates work best on 7 lb. Stratocasters.

I have come to think that components should have some balance to them - like, either build a light guitar, or build a heavy guitar. I have no science to prove this, but I've some instruments proved it to me. Fender just re-released the Coronado guitars and basses, but I had one of the old basses that sustained really well. 30" scale, completely hollow.  :icon_scratch: And I've had guitars that just seem to match up with a certain gauge of strings and felt like dogs with the wrong strings. About all I can think of in the "reason" dept. is that whatever vibrations there are in a guitar body, bridge, and neck etc. may transfer from similar-weight components better. Like if you did have a chunk of brass under the bridge, it'll hit a brick wall trying to transmit vibrations to an ultra-light piece of swamp ash. And you wouldn't put Fender sheet metal saddles on a 15 lb. Alembic - their mass is so light compared to the other parts, any fun they're having will just get swallowed.

One thing to remain alert for is any advertising or blurbing for parts that claim to "increase string tension" - thereby sustaining better, fuller tone blah blah blah. There is one great way to increase sting tension - the tuning pegs. There's no way around the elementary physics of string weight, tension, and length.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

I'm kinda old = old enough to remember the 70's craze for heavy brass everything - whammys, knobs, nuts, it was quite customary to rout a little rectangle out of some of those old beat up junky Fenders and actually inlay a chunk of brass under the bridge... and - it didn't work at all. Heavy brass parts worked great on the "hippie sandwich" Alembic guitars made out of maple & purpleheart and rosewood. And really light little bent sheet metal bridge saddles and baseplates work best on 7 lb. Stratocasters.

I have come to think that components should have some balance to them - like, either build a light guitar, or build a heavy guitar. I have no science to prove this, but I've some instruments proved it to me. Fender just re-released the Coronado guitars and basses, but I had one of the old basses that sustained really well. 30" scale, completely hollow.  :icon_scratch: And I've had guitars that just seem to match up with a certain gauge of strings and felt like dogs with the wrong strings. About all I can think of in the "reason" dept. is that whatever vibrations there are in a guitar body, bridge, and neck etc. may transfer from similar-weight components better. Like if you did have a chunk of brass under the bridge, it'll hit a brick wall trying to transmit vibrations to an ultra-light piece of swamp ash. And you wouldn't put Fender sheet metal saddles on a 15 lb. Alembic - their mass is so light compared to the other parts, any fun they're having will just get swallowed.

Funny you should bring that up I just bought one of these for the  Black soloist build I am currently in the midst of.