Ebony Cap

A good friend and fine luthier, Chet Dickserson, mentioned that an Ebony cap might improve the sound. I glued the ebony cap on the bridge base on prior to shaping it. The final shaping will be done at setup.

Another Floating Bridge

Here's another floating bridge I made for a parlor guitar, as an experiment. It's not my design, I saw it at koentoppguitars.com.

Here's the parlor guitar with the floating bridge.

Step 01 - Layout

The goal was to make a simple floating bridge for a travel guitar.

After drawing up a couple of ideas, I settled on a design that would allow me to make a bunch of them at once.

Here's how I laid it out on a piece of maple 1-3/4" wide by 3/4" thick. The layout drawing shows 4 bridges, but the piece is twice as thick as it needs to be so I'll get 8 bridges out of it. The second picture shows a single bridge highlighted in the layout.

The length of each bridge is 4" with a saddle top about 2-1/2" long to accommodate a variety of string spacings (mine will be 2-1/8").

Step 02 - Drill Holes

The circular arcs on the bridge made this part easy.

I'm using a 1-1/8" diameter Forstner bit to drill the holes. I had to butt another piece of maple against my bridge piece to stop the bit from wandering off the edge.

Step 03 - Cut Ends

I probably could have blocked the bridge piece on the side and end to drill out the arcs on the end pieces but I chose to use the scroll saw instead.

I didn't do such a good job on these cuts so I'll have to clean them up later.

Step 04 - Cut In Half Vertically

Slice the piece in half vertically on the band saw.

It looks like this may be a good way to make wooden knuckles. :)

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Step 05 - Cut In Half Horizontally

Slice the piece in half horizontallylly on the band saw.

You now have long, double floating bridges.

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Step 06 - The Last Cut

Cut the double bridge piece in half. That's it. Just need to do some final cleanup.

Final Shaping

A little sanding gives it a more graceful shape.

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