Has anyone experimented with bridge materials (bone, ivory, etc)

[Jim Garber]

I have recently been looking at waldzithers, which some say are the original Irish bouzoukis,

Hmmmm... pardon my ignorance but aren't Greek bouzoukis the original Irish bouzoukis? Seems like... Irish bouzouki

[HonketyHank]

Hmmmm... pardon my ignorance but aren't Greek bouzoukis the original Irish bouzoukis? Seems like... Irish bouzouki

I have no irons in this fire and I in fact agree a Greek origin seems more logical than a German origin, but ...
http://www.mandolinluthier.com/waldzither-page.htm

Seems like we need to contact Andy Irvine. Probably need a ouija board, though.

To the point: If a waldzither is indeed supposed to sound, well, zithery, I bet a glass bridge helps get that twangy, zingy tone.

[Jim Garber]

I do believe that I heard that at some point Andy Irvine did play a waldzither however in the searches I just did there is no mention of that instrument. I think our friend Dave Hynds may be mistaken about the origin in Irish music. No mention of the waldzither in a discussion on The Session or http://www.gladstoneluthiers.com/iri...i-history.htmlhttp://www.gladstoneluthiers.com/iri...i-history.html and the first chapter of Graham McDonald's book on the Irish Bouzouki (pdf below).

[HonketyHank]

Thanks for that pdf, Jim. Very interesting. And I just looked up Andy Irvine and it looks like he is not yet on the other side of a ouija board.

[Charlieshafer]

For what it's worth, I use a bone bridge on my mandocello, and it works beautifully.

[maj34]

A good friend of mine has a 1916 Gibson F2 with an interesting bridge. The original one-piece bridge is long gone; it now has a full-contact ebony bridge base with a bone saddle. It is one of the punchiest/meatiest-sounding oval hole Gibsons I have played. Of course, I have no idea what it sounded like with the original bridge. . . Could just be a mandolin that has "it," or the bridge could have something to do with it.

[VernBrekke]

"Weber ditched the Brekke original for the new "traditional ". A vast improvement. I had the original on an old mando back in 2005 or 6... good tone, but not very loud. Too bad the cool concept of no metal doesn't work on the old bridge design."

Not exactly ditched... The original bridge was still sold but the traditional bridge was less controversial and easier to sell to dealers (although there were other dealers and players who requested the original bridge). The traditional bridge was also easier and cheaper to manufacture.

The intent of the original bridge was always to give players an option to the Loar style bridge. Not everyone likes the same sound from their instruments or play the same styles of music. It has always kind of surprised me how many people are willing to assume that what they like is what everyone else should like. It’s also fairly well accepted that different instruments respond differently to different bridges.

Over the many years that I have been selling the original bridge, I have had literally hundreds of players, dealers and builders who have let me know how much they like the original bridge. The original bridge is especially appreciated by those with oval-hole instruments and vintage instruments that had one-piece, non-adjustable bridges. It’s also the only adjustable bridge that can accommodate very low actions such as those on flat-top instruments. The “S” shaped mandola, octave and cello original bridges are generally much thinner than their counterparts and have been well received for their tone. Recently, I’ve also done several custom original bridges for octaves and a couple of bouzouki bridges.

So to say that the design doesn’t work …

Vern Brekke
Bridger Products

[HonketyHank]

I have an older Weber Beartooth A mandolin whose tone qualities I like better than any I have owned. I loved it after playing only a few notes and had to have it. That mandolin has the original style Brekke bridge and this thread has made me think about what I like about that mandolin's sound. I would characterise it as "very non-Gibsony", mellow, short sustain. I don't play in groups, so I had not until now realized that it has indeed slightly less volume than other mandolins in its class.

All of this would seem to indicate that at least part of the sound that I love from that mandolin is due to the vibration damping characteristics of the bridge. I had at times wondered about the bridge after reading comments from folks who described how the tone of their mandolin "improved" after replacing the original Brekke bridge with something more like the Loar design. As for me, now, that "improvement" of tone scares me - I have another mandolin that sounds a lot more "bluegrassy"; I don't need two of them; I love the tone of this mandolin as it is.

As a by the way, I tripped over this discussion of damping and its role in stringed instrument design today and found it quite applicable to this thread: http://www.liutaiomottola.com/myth/damping.htm

[Jim]

My Strad o lin came with a broken saddle, I made a saddle of maple from some old organ peddles I had salvaged. It sounds great! I never had heard it with anything else so there's no comparison, but everyone that's heard it thinks it sounds sweet!