Questions about bridge design

[Hudmister]

Adrian, When I explained fitting a bridge using the chalk (powder) method they just laughed at me and thought I was crazy...I have also used a contact gauge to get a good fit but that is another story....

Willie

I'm down with Willie. I have been spending a lot of time fitting a bridge and switched to the Poole method.

[fscotte]

I'm not convinced it matters, at all.

Any part of the feet that make contact with the top bears the pressure. If you reduce the size of the feet by choice, or poor fit, the pressure increases on that part of the feet that does make contact, but the pressure never changes on the top, it remains constant.

I think a good contact is more important for distributing the pressure so there arent any "hot" spots which could damage the top, cause cracks, impressions in the lacquer, deformation, etc..


ps. Think of it this way: a full contact bridge vs a 2 foot bridge. One could argue that a full contact bridge is the "perfect" fit because it makes full contact. However, from my understanding and experience, neither sounds much different. Even though a two foot bridge could be considered less superior because its fit isn't as good.

Now take it further. We started with a full contact bridge and we start to sand away wood from the middle to the point that we now have a two foot bridge. Ok, so now we sand further to the point where the two feet get smaller and smaller. At what point does someone say, oh, that's too much off the feet? Eventually, we may end up with two feet that are 1/4" wide, but has the sound diminished?

What we do have however, is lots of pressure on those two small feet which could lead to top damage. However, going from the full contact bridge to the small two footer bridge, the top pressure has never changed.