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I'm curious if anyone here has tried anything besides ebony for their bridges? Conventional wisdom in the classical guitar world seems to be that ebony is an inferior choice. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

I just made this maple bridge for my #2 guitar last week. Seems like any hard wood would work for a bridge.

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Keith Lally
http://krl-guitar-building.blogspot.com/

Ok, in order of classical violin style (archtops) the woods most commonly used are

Maple
box wood
after that its a crap shoot.

Ebony edge on a maple bridge works.

then its what ever hard wood you got that is dense. Dense is what your after.

Thats me take on bridges.


blessings
Padma

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Jason,
Here is a blog about just this subject from last year. He tests various species.

Murphy Method Blog

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

Thanks for the link Chris. Really interesting stuff.

What is acceptable in tone to you or your customer is what works. As says, any dense hardwood. Most accepted in the mandolin world is ebony.
Adjustable bridges are another consideration. They certainly do impart a different (and accepted in the mandolin world) tone. Seems to me that African blackwood would make a good bridge, also Hormigo as it really rings.

I've made a half dozen bridges out of African Blackwood (just finished one yesterday). Hard to work with, but I really like it and it shines up beautifully. My ears aren't skilled enough yet to tell the sound difference from it or the ebony ones I've done.

I used to have a link off Red's page, I think it is still there under a list of other folks that have dorked around with solid bridges. In case you can't find it there try
http://dunwellguitar.com/SolidBridge/SolidBridge2.htm

I've got two F-styles going right now and one is for a guy in Texas and I'll be making a couple solid bridges for him to use as well as including the standard adjustable.

I've come to really like the shedula, nice hard wood that takes a good polish. It can be a bit coarse grained so you need to be a bit pickie when selecting out the blanks. It is also hard to beat a good piece of rock maple and I like to top the unwound string areas with insets of ebony. Fun stuff, read my caveats about making the side slots and compression.

Alan D.