Pin bridge question.

[Oliver R]

I apologise in advance that this is not 'specifically' mandolin related but it does involve stringed instruments so I do hope that's ok.
Right, My question is this..
On the pin bridge of my Recording King guitar the holes that the pins lock into have a sort of slot that the strings sit in cut into the wood of the bridge at the front (headstock facing). This seems to increase the brake angle over the saddle.
I have just bought a Washburn parlour guitar (new one) and the holes do not have this feature. I have reduced the height of the saddle and I don't have a great amount of brake angle left.
It's not a problem and the guitar seems unaffected by this factor but I wondered if its a difficult job to cut these slots into the bridge therefore increasing said brake angle once more.
Any suggestions fellas?
Cheers
Oliver

[300win]

Oliver go to the Unofficial Martin Guitar forum, or the sister forum to that one the Bluerisge guitar forum. There is a ton of info on those about guitar teq. questions, and several guitar luthiers to help. I also play guitar and I would not think it would be too difficult for you to do what you are wanting to do, but better to hear it from the mouth of one who has done it. Hope this helps.

[clarksavage]

You can "ramp" the bridge (the trail between the saddle and pin hole) to change the break angle. I suspect this is covered on a few of the acoustic guitar repair webpages, here's one photo that seems to tell the story - http://www.fretnotguitarrepair.com/images/cuttingramps.jpg

Clark

[Oliver R]

Yup, that's exactly what I'm talking about Clark, although on the 'King' its even more of a sharp/deeper angle.
I will indeed check out the guitar forums Winn.

[Paul Hostetter]

Frank Ford has a swell tutorial about this right here (http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Guitar/Bridges/StringRamps/stringramp.html).

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Guitar/Bridges/StringRamps/StringRampViews/ramp3.jpg

[Oliver R]

Fantastic!
Cheers Paul.