Here's Teri LaMarco's report on her new bridge,"The Wave"
New One-Piece Maple Bridge Design.....The Wave
Here is some info and pics of a new style one-piece maple bridge. This one I patterned after a bridge made by luthier John Kinnard of Dell' Arte Instruments on a Finegold mandolin. The bridge was a one piece ebony design I had not seen before, and since I had been experimenting in making some of the Red Henry bridge designs, I thought the Kinnard bridge design was worth trying out.
I found the shape to be much easier to cut out since it had no holes, wings or the filed out areas for each set of strings for intonation. The bottom opening I'll call "the wave" with the crest of the wave falling under the G strings. I imagine the tone can be varied by cutting the wave higher or lower. The shape of the top surface of the Kinnard style bridge, can best be understood by looking at the pictures. The lower G strings start at a line that runs on an upward slant from left to right with the G being at the lower point, and E ending up at the higher point. I was concerned about intonation, but found it to be near perfect. To create the slanted bridge top, after cutting out the basic shape of the bridge, I left the top about ¼ " wide. I then drew a straight line from the bottom left corner up to the top right corner. I then shaped this slanting upward line by sanding out a beveled edge from the sides. The ending top surface was about 1/8" wide. On the Kinnard bridge the top surface where the strings made contact was almost knife edge.
I then shaped the top edge with a slight radius because of my radiused fingerboard, and cut out the string slots.
After fitting the bridge to the top of my Breedlove and stringing her up I found the tone to be noticeably warmer and volume a little louder than the previous maple bridge designs I have tried. I am very pleased with the sound and design of this bridge. Hope someone else gives this shape a try and please let us know the results. Here's the specs:
4- 5/16"L overall
¼"W at feet.
3/16"top width
top- 2- 5/16"L
Weight: 6.9 gm
If you need more information, feel free to contact me.
