tapering the thickness of a bridge

[cactus bum]

I was just reading over Ron Wisdom's excellent tutorial on his "Manly Denton Guitar Build." I notice he says "the bridge is tapered from bass to treble to allow for string thickness". I guess I understand the concept of wanting the strings be a certain distance from the fretboard. I have seen many of you guys have tapered the height of the saddle from bass to treble to accomplish this. However, I have not noticed bridges being done like this. Is the reason this is done to allow the bottom of the routed slot for the saddle to have a greater depth on the treble end and make the saddle dimension itself have the same height for its length, instead of only tapering the saddle to accomplish this? It certainly would be easier to rout the sloping bottom of the saddle slot by indexing off the declining elevation of the top of the bridge. But, I feel I am missing something. Who else does it this way, and why? If this is covered in another thread please steer me to it so I don't bother you folks. Thanks, Cactus







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[Kim]

Hey Cactus,

The bridge is tapered only to make the saddle 'appear' to be level. The tapper only offers 'visual' equalisation to the amount of bone projecting vertically from the bridge slot after the saddle has been lowered on the treble side in order to bring the sting clearance down. Because of greater string thicknesses and larger oscillations when struck, the base side of the saddle does need a bit more clearance to avoid buzz.

Cheers

Kim

[cactus bum]

Thanks Kim for your reply. This makes perfect sense, now that you've explained it. At this very early stage in my learning my mind goes more to the practical, and less the aestetic. I should try to balance it out more.
Cactus

[Allen]

I've tapered about 50% of the bridges I've made. It doesn't take much work on the belt sander, and I think it gives a more refined look to the bridge.

[Hesh1956]

The reason why some makers taper the bridges to be a tad lower on the treble side is related to string thickness but that is not the complete reason.

Since typically saddles are lower on the treble side and if your bridge pin pattern is uniform in it's distance from the back side of the saddle the break angle for the treble strings will be less with a bridge with a uniform height and a lower saddle on the treble side. So shaving the top of the bridge down a bit on the treble side effectively increases the amount of saddle that is proud of the bridge on that side also effectively increasing the break angle for the treble strings.

Make sense? I wish I could draw so I could illustrate this for you...

[cactus bum]

Hesh, I think I get the concept now. What I don't get is does the proper break angle give less stress to the string, or is there some acoustic advantage? Thanks Cactus

[Kim]

Good point Hesh, forgot about that bit.

Cactus a more acute break angle between the bridge pin and the saddle equates to an increase in the downward pressure being applied to the top of the saddle, to a point, this is a very good thing for both tone and volume. EG: More efficient use of string energy by directing it to driving the bridge via the saddle as it is meant to.

Cheers

Kim

[Hesh1956]

Michael bro what Kim said. This can be useful if for example one is building a dread and past experience with their particular bridge design and bracing the treble is lacking. You can boost the treble a bit by increasing the break angle of the treble strings and this can be done a number of ways which include moving the pin holes closer to the back of the saddle OR lowering the bridge height on the treble side. In both cases you are increasing the break angle over the saddle on the treble side.

Ramping the string exits from the pin holes helps too even though this is usually done in support of not using slotted pins.

Too little break angle and more of the energy from the string is transfered to the pin holes, pins, etc. and results in a muffled, quieter, less focused sound.

Some of the guys who build with an eye toward optimizing or hot rodding every aspect of a guitar will use a pretty dramatic break angle - Mario P. comes to mind.

[cactus bum]

This seems like a very useful piece of the guitar puzzle. In my case I am building a terz. I should want to boost the bass, but not at the expense of the treble. I have read of some people sculpting the braces differently on one side, some use different material bridge pins on treble and bass sides. Is there something I can do, with break angle or otherwise, to boost my bass? Maybe this gets off topic, I dunno.

The thing I really know about string break is if you go to Mexico for string break it's beer, sunburn, and girls galore.

Thanks Kim and Hesh for your time. Cactus

[Allen]

Your delving into the mysteries of guitar building with these sorts of questions Michael. And why it's just so much fun and addictive.

All of these tweaks that your talking about will have proponents on either side of the fence, and both may be right, or full of hot air. The changes that these things make (or don't) are going to be very subtle.

Your going to need to build many, many instruments to know if any of these tweaks are going to make a difference to the tone you get from the way you build.

[cactus bum]

Thanks Allen, I am climbing this mountain voluntarily. I hope to gain some insights as I climb. I am perfectly willing to pay any dues necessary to get where I want to go, but asking questions of you experienced builders hopefully will keep me from straying too far off the path, getting lost, hungry, cold, and cause me to have to burn my guitar to keep warm. Now THAT would be a shame. Cheers, Cactus