Official Luthiers Forum!

[quote="Woodie G"]I'm often struck by how much damage is seen on maple bridge plates after just 10-15 years of service, but don't find the idea of a carbon fiber laminate appealing. With all the Dalbergias off the table as far as avoiding CITES paperwork, what other medium density, high side-hardness woods - in addition to osage orange and black locust - are builders using? It seems like dogwood and apple would both be similar in density and hardness to black locust, while American beech would be a bit less dense and of slightly lower hardness - essentially the same characteristics as hard maple. Persimmon seems to be both hard and of moderate density, but difficult to source. Other ideas?[/quote]

Black Locust

I've see the same and every one of them has slotted bridge pins and a unslotted bridge. Solid pins a properly slotted bridge, care when restringing your bridge plate can last the life of the guitar

Was thinking carbon fiber & mahogany.

Is quartered maple OK as long as the bridge pins don't wind up running along a single grain line?

_________________
Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

I use Patagonian Rosewood Anadenanthera columbrina (also known as Curapay. It's an extremely dense wood but more importantly, it is ridiculously tough and split resistant. It's got a nice, gong-like taptone. I built my instruments very lightly and my lower bout bracing is a bit unusua. The bracing ties the cross-grain fibers together but the layout still gives me a lot of flexibility (especially, for the monopole) but I like for the bridge plate to secure that region and prevent distortion - this material helps me to do that.

I used purpleheart recently for no other reason that I had some in the shop. Best sounding guitar I have made to date by a large margin.

Although I am not suggesting causation.

_________________
"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I use domestic Osage Orange primarily. It’s used for fence posts and firewood on our family farms, so there’s a constant free supply. I also tend to use slightly riff cut pieces, thinking it may slightly decrease the chance of along the grain cracks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

_________________
Aaron Craig

I've been using OO as well in the same cut. On the last one I laminated it to spruce to stiffen it and lighten it up a bit too.