Fitting Ian's bridge

Apologies to regular readers; I haven’t posted for a while, but things have been very busy lately.

The bridge has now been fitted to Ian’s guitar. In my opinion, this is one of the most fraught times in the construction of a guitar. Firstly, you’re working on a freshly finished instrument and secondly, the placement of bridge has to be spot on.

Here’s a brief description of the process.

The underside of the bridge blank has to be shaped to match the curve of the soundboard.

Then I make the bridge itself, here it is ready to be positioned.

Some very careful marking out is done. Tip of the day- fold back one corner of the masking tape, makes it much easier to remove.

The bridge position is marked out with a scalpel- just enough pressure to cut through the tape and score the finish.

Then the finish (whatever is used) has to be scraped off so that there is bare wood for the glue to adhere to.

Then we have a dry run………….

And then with glue.

A 24 hours later, we’re ready for the setting-up process.

And here we have the next two mandolins "in the white", both English walnut.

David’s Standard Plus

Jeff’s Twin-Point