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I’m in the process of making an Irish Bouzouki for a client and need to fabricate a floating bridge.

Any advice from the mandolin specialists would be very much appreciated (I’m a guitar maker really).

My considerations are;

Do I make a split bridge to help if the client wants to fit a pickup?

Is there an advantage to making an adjustable bridge (and will it affect the energy transfer from the strings)?

Is there anything about bridge design I need to consider that I might not have thought about?

Many thanks in advance chaps.

I've done a few floating bridges (archtop, octave mando, and flattop mando). One was adjusting, the other fixed. Fixed is certainly easier, but gives less flexibility in dialing in the setup. Neither are not too much of a challenge. The adjustable bridge had a bone saddle set into the floating/adjustable piece. The fixed bridges were both ebony. I think, if done right, you shouldn't worry much about loss of energy with an adjustable bridge. The key piece is to get the base to fit flush to the top of the instrument.

I've used internal pickups, so no help there.

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Cheers Tony.

I think I’m going for a none adjustable but I’ll provide two saddles, one low and one medium to high.

I’ll recommend an internal pickup if the client needs it.

Making the zouk has been an interesting project, I might have to do one for myself.

Steve. I have recently posted my first attempt at building a bouzouki. You can see the floating bringe I ended up with. I didn’t make my own bridge. I actually bought adjustable ones off eBay (there are a few different sellers, all in China, but they are probably all from the same source). I ended up removing the screw adjustment hardware and gluing the two halves together to make a solid rosewood bridge. They would not be too hard to make, but are very cheap to buy pre-fabricated and adapt to your needs. As you suggested, you can adjust saddle height to get the right setup. I found the ones that I bought had Tusq saddles of exactly the same dimensions as I had been using in guitar bridges (which are Taylor compensated saddles). The Taylor saddles just dropped straight in and are easily sanded down, or shimmer up to your desired height. So, my experience is limited - but I would endorse your plan.

Thanks for the reply, Mark.

Yours looks great. I think I’m going for understated with mine as it’s not for me.

More elaborate decoration next time if I do one for myself.

Cheers

Steve

Sounds like a plan, Steve. You'll end up building one for yourself as soon as you hear it! They are a lot of fun, but require some serious finger stretching to reach some of the chords that I play on the mando. Gives a way to play with a group of folks and not be just another of the same thing.

FWIW, if you have not bought a tailpiece yet, I ended up using one from Allen (http://www.allenguitar.com/tpcs.htm) after ordering and returning a bunch of lower cost tailpieces. The Allen's are solid and look great. Worth the price in the end.

Enjoy!

-Tony

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

+1 for Allen tailpieces. I am very happy with mine.