Bridges

[Willie]

I have a well know brand of mandolin that has a high pitch tone on the A and E strings, higher than I like anyway...I was wondering if any one has any info if any other kind of wood would soften the sound produced on those strings...I don`t want to kill he loudness though...Has anyone ever used maple for a mandolin bridge? Seems all violin and banjo bridges are maple....Willie http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[Bill Snyder]

Red Henry Bridge (http://www.murphymethod.com/redbridge.html) and Steve Tourtellotte (http://www.mandolinbridge.com/) both make maple bridges.

[Paul Hostetter]

You sure can't miss with ebony, especially light African ebony which is a Dalbergia, but all kinds of hardwoods are worth a try, and each has a character. I use maple, bay laurel, various rosewoods, padauk, madrone, even some softer woods like walnut and sycamore, with an ebony cap for the strings. I just made one last week out of manzanita, a really hard, reddish brown local wood that was destined for the woodstove. It's the closest to old ebony I think I've ever used, and I may try and lay some in for future bridges. It's really pretty and easy to work. The tree itself is barely more than a scroungy shrub. Great barbecue wood.

In the old days, the main ebony was African, and was technically a rosewood. Nowadays most ebony is from India and east of there, and it's quite different than the ebony Gibson and others routinely used before WWII. But it's the standard, and not just because it's black. Don't be afraid to try different woods, you'll probably learn something.

[Dave Cohen]

Maple is really light compared to ebony. If your mandolin already has some harsh components in the upper frequency range, you might want to try going heavier instead of lighter. A more massive bridge is more likely to serve as a low-pass filter. It will tend to pass the low frequency components while not passing the higher frequency components as readily. Try a larger ebony bridge, or one made of, say, ironwood, or lignum vitae. I have some Macassar ebony that seems to be especially dense.

[whistler]

I use maple, bay laurel, various rosewoods...

Paul - I am intreagued that you use bay laurel (I presume this is the same as what I know by this name, Laurus nobilis). It's not ideally suited to the Britishg climate, but you do sometimes see them growing in gardens and parks in Southern England. I've seen them felled occasionally, and wondered if the wood might be of any use to me.

[Paul Hostetter]

Our bay laurel is actually Umbellularia californica, which is a relative (lauraceae) though a bit different. The leaves are about twice as pungent, and the wood isn't as dense. I just got a bunch of real bay laurel, Laurus nobilis, a neighbor's old yard tree cut down for firewood, and can't wait to use it. It's whiter and harder.

I have two big chunks (mandolins?? http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif ) put up with high hopes. But the stuff I have used for bridges is the California native, known farther north as Oregon myrtle. It's a magnificent tonewood. Being a cultivated non-native, the real bay laurel like you have is fairly rare out here.

[peter.coombe]

I tried various woods in Red Henry styles bridges and ended up coming back to Ebony since I thought Ebony easily sounded best on my mandolins (see http://www.petercoombe.com/jaamim4.html). (http://www.petercoombe.com/jaamim4.html) #If your mandolin has high pitch A and E stings, the worst thing you could do is to change the bridge to Maple. #As suggested by Dave, try a heavier bridge.

[tree]

The tree itself is barely more than a scroungy shrub.
That reminded me of boxwood - it's an old fashioned shrub that you see in old or historic landscapes here in the southeast, and is a very slow grower. What little I have in the shed came from discarded trimmings out of an old cemetery, and none of it is much bigger than a chisel handle (which is what I've made with it to date). It also makes a dandy letter opener - it is so hard and dense and even-grained that it will take and hold a surprisingly sharp edge. It also takes a nice polish. It's neat stuff.

Anybody ever use boxwood for a mando or banjo bridge?

[Paul Hostetter]

If your mandolin has high pitch A and E strings, the worst thing you could do is to change the bridge to maple.

This hasn't been my experience, and to that end I'd say the worst thing to do would be to not try something because someone else told you not to. You learn nothing thereby. Maple is not a homogenous material. Some is dense, some is not, some has life in it, some doesn't. The only way you're going to learn anything is to try it. Making a bridge is not rocket science. It's not like replacing the top. It's not doing irreversible damage to an instrument. I also know there's more to a bridge than the material - details like how it's fit to the top, how the slots are cut, the final overall mass, the length relative to the surface it's trying to excite. I generally prefer ebony, and yet I continue to try other things.

[Martin Jonas]

Paul - I am intreagued that you use bay laurel (I presume this is the same as what I know by this name, Laurus nobilis). It's not ideally suited to the Britishg climate, but you do sometimes see them growing in gardens and parks in Southern England. #I've seen them felled occasionally, and wondered if the wood might be of any use to me.
What do you mean, "Southern England"? We have a Laurus nobilis tree in our garden in North Wales and it's doing just fine. Planted it six years ago as a small shrub and it's about 2.5m high now. No intention of felling it for mandolin bridges or anything else, but I occasionally pick a leaf for use in cooking (not recommended for Umbellularia californica).

Martin

[mikeyes]

Just for the record, not all banjo bridges are maple. A number of woods have been tried successfully for both the top and the body. I have an article in my web site on the search for the perfect Irish tenor banjo bridge that uses some of Red Henry's ideas.

[Paul Hostetter]

Trust me, Umbellularia californica, AKA California bay (http://www.coestatepark.com/umbellularia_californica.htm), is a superb cooking spice. And tonewood!

http://www.cookwoods.com/Myrtle.jpg

It looks nice where it grows, too.

http://www.cnps.org/programs/vegetation/Coyote_Ridge/images/46a_Umbellularia_californica-Quercus_agrifolia_CC.jpg

[John Flynn]

My Old Wave oval has a bridge made from Desert Ironwood. The Old Wave auction mandolin I handled had a bridge made from Ziricote (aka Mexican Ebony). Both sounded great. Both bridges had much thinner, narrower saddles than I usually see on "Gibson-type" bridges, but they held up to the tension just fine. Perhaps Bill Bussman will comment. He seems to experiment with a lot of different woods.

The one with Ironwood has a very tight sound, almost like a good F-hole mando, but with some of the characteristic oval tubbiness. The one with Ziricote had a very sweet, bell-like sound. But both used different tonewoods and both had different strings on them when I compared them, so it's hard to tell what factors result in what sound.

[Willie]

Thanks to all for your comments....I was under the impression that a harder denser wood would be more shrill than a softer wood...So, I learned something on here this week....Thanks again....Willie