pinless bridge question

[JurgenV]

hi guys,

I have my third customer finally

But he has some special specifications. One of them being a pinless bridge.

Did one of you use a pinless bridge on a falcate bracing and did you have trouble with reducing the weight? Which design worked for you? I saw the doolin version and the breedlove design. Any recommendations?

[Semmens Guitars]

I Have made a bunch of the Doolin type ones. The angles of the pins are crucial to that design. The one I do in my school now mostly are more like the classical style thought the back of the bridge. This works great. Black wood or QLD walnut are good choices here both will end up very light.

[Mark McLean]

I have done a pinless bridge on a falcate braced top (like ovation or Lowden or Breedlove, not the Doolin). It works fine, and actually avoids one fiddly bit of the falcate method which is arranging the primary braces to run between the bridge pins. A pinless bridge doesn’t need to be any more weighty than a pinned design.

[JurgenV]

Thanks for the answers.
I have to admit I never saw a pinless bridge in real life, only some pictures. I even found one here in the forum: a post from Jim Watts from 2018. Looks actually a bit like the Breedlove bridge. But for example it´s not clear to me how to get the angles for the string channels right if you want to use a design where the strings are kind of hidden under the bridge wood. What are the things you absolutely have to get right to avoid failure?
If someone could provide a few more detail pictures of a working design, that would be great. I would like to stay as close as possible to the shape of Trevor Gore´s bridge design but at the moment I´m a bit clueless.

[Mark McLean]

This one is a Breedlove and is pretty simple. You would want to draw it out at large scale and work out the angles. Do something like a countersink for the ball ends to slip out of sight.

It is actually more beefy than it needs to be. You can route out a channel across the middle to reduce the weight, and it also looks more elegant IMO.

IMG_0072.jpeg (496.53 KiB) Viewed 1230 times

That one came from this forum discussion which is pretty useful:
https://acousticguitarconstructionforum ... it=Pinless

And I like the look of this one for the same reasons:
https://www.jimmyegypt.com/blog/making- ... e-in-ebony

Here is another discussion with some method explanation:
https://acousticguitarconstructionforum ... .php?t=523