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Bridge weight
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Bridge weight
This is pertaining to steel string builds, dreadnaught or OM style. Michael Bashkin mentioned in a recent zoom chat that his bridges weigh in at about 25 grams. I have also heard some builders shoot for an even lighter bridge. The pre-made bridges I have purchased in the past from LMI come in at about 39 grams. What are some other opinions on this? And how do I modify the LMI bridge to reduce weight? That seems like a lot of material to have to remove.
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5 Replies
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Giuliano Nicoletti’s 2023 book, Mastering the Sound of the Acoustic Guitar, gives a general bridge weight recommendation of “not to exceed 20-25 grams….while the bridge plate should weight around 4-8 grams” (p.87). A VERY good book BTW…
That certainly is a LOT of weight to remove. IS it an oversize bridge? Compare all dimensions of the new bridge with other bridges and see where you could remove material and still maintain the appearance/ critical geometry. I might start by taking wood off the top-tail end-radius of the belly, Maintaining the footprint, and blending the radiused edge into the top of the bridge. A drum sander could remove material by moving the top-to-wing radius on both ends inward toward the center while retaining the rigidity of the “wings”. Have you considered making your own bridges, it’s pretty satisfying.
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The wood and design that you use are very important in that sense. I usually make ebony bridge with the traditional Martin style and they were about 35 grams. On my current build I made a padouk bridge with a different more modern style and it weighs 20 g. See picture attached.
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I’m brought back to this thread, searching for more discussion on bridge materials in terms of weight and stiffness. Just read a paper by Trevor Gore* which has a brief mention of bridge woods, relating to mass (weight). In it, he identifies three woods that rated well, balancing stiffness, density and hardness: padauk (Pterocarpus sp.), walnut (Juglans nigra) and Tasmanian blackwood
(Acacia melanoxylon). These have not been particularly easy to find in a standard bridge blank sized chunk.I may end up cutting my own billets from Black Walnut I harvested and cut into boards, 15 years ago. Anyone else focusing on bridge weight and material? A heavy bridge is a sure way to limit top mobility, and vise versa.
*161st Meeting
Acoustical Society of America
Seattle, Washington
23 – 27 May 2011
Session 3aMU: Musical Acoustics
3aMU4. Wood for Guitars -
Hi: To put some more numbers on it my rosewood bridges range from 17-21 grams and ebony 22-28 grams. I tend to use rosewood but there are cases where I prefer a heavier bridge to either bring the top resonance down or decrease the monopole mobilty for a guitar intended for flatpicking and strumming. All in all I think its is a good practice to match the bridge weight regardless of species to the top and the goal sound for the guitar.
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There’s a lot in the Gore construction book on lightweight bridge construction I made some laminated koa and carbon fiber bridges. I glued them in a vacuum bag in a food sealer. It was definitely some experimentation but i enjoyed it…
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