bridge details on cylinderbacks

  1. DerTiefster
    DerTiefster
    Gentle folk,

    The bridge on the cylinderback I have is a gracefully shaped little winged thing with a bone(?) insert carefully an delicately fitted under the strings. Unfortunately one of the wings has bent upward a bit and the cant on the top is folded down at the low point at the treble end of the bridge. The bridges I've seen on other pictures on the cafe are more robust things with stronger wings.

    I'm interested in details about the bridges and, in very particular, just how the shape of the bridges correlates with the shape of depressions and sunken areas on the sound board. I'll get some detailed pics up a bit later, along with pointers to the bridge pictures to which I referred. Is there a way to tie pics to social group postings, or must one add to the group photos or ones own album(s). Or would it just be better to make a main forum post to do that?
  2. DerTiefster
    DerTiefster
    This thread contains a lot of great information, as well as good pictures of a -very- good condition -maple- 205 mandolin, serial 37184, from about 1919-1920. My recently acquired rosewood 205 is serial 37159, only very slightly ahead in production.

    http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...Vega-model-205

    The bridge of this one looks identical to mine but for mine being possibly shaved down on the base. This may have had consequences.

    Hmmmm. Sometimes you make assumptions and sometimes they're correct. I may have uncovered an assumption here that is -not- correct. I measured the dimensions of this mandolin and I find that its scale length is 15", rather than the 13-5/8" mentioned in the maple 205 thread by resophonic. The width of the body is a very wide-of-beam 11-1/2" rather than the 10-3/8" or so I see mentioned elsewhere. It looks like I have a 205 version 8-string mandola!. If it had been strung up as a mandolin, then its string tensions would have been about 20% higher than for a 13-5/8" scale mandolin with the same strings. OK. "Keel" depth 3-3/16" to 3-1/4", with 13-1/2" max. case width.

    Hey, youse guys and y'all....ever'body 'fess up (please) about your body dimensions (your Vegas, that is). I'm getting more and more curious about this.

    Addendum: I found some dimensions from Eddie for a 305 (10-string) in this post:
    http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...l=1#post789555
    giving 11-1/4" width and 2-1/2" depth.
  3. wormtowndj
    wormtowndj
    My 1920 202 (serial 38537) has a scale length of 13-13/16", 10" wide, 2-7/8" depth at tail. Total length from head to tail 24-7/8". The bridge is as simple as can be (as seen here http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/gr...chmentid=66311 ), and lord it is a sweet sounding instrument. I handed it to Carl Jones a few weeks ago at a festival and stood back and admired it anew.
  4. DerTiefster
    DerTiefster
    I'm in the process of examining bridge issues (again). The 37159 mandola I have (15" scale, post-WWI) has an apparently original bone-insert bridge and saddle width two-wound bass course and two plain treble course compensation. I've just learned about another mandola with a few years' head-start (4-5 yrs earlier production -- pre-WWI) which has mandola compensation (three wound and one plain course) on the bone bridge insert, and its bridge base is significantly different from 37159's. I am coming to suspect that 37159 was sold with a mandolin bridge and the earlier one with a mandola bridge. The earlier bridge has "wings" extending from the bridge base which have -much- thicker connections to the main body. The tiny wings of 37159 has resulted in a bit of "fold-up" on the treble side which has probably exacerbated the top sinkage this mandola has experienced. I'll be duplicating the earlier bridge and trying it out on 37159 to check stability, as well as making at least one Red Henry style maple or ebony bridge specifically to address sinkage issues (and experiment with tonal quality at the same time -- mustn't be too tunnel-visioned).

    I'll probably post pics after I get this under way, but I'd appreciate any feedback.

    Michael
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