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Here's my kessel with it's badge and hand carved bridge footer (brazilian) to replace the one that was collapsing.
2nd photo shows the board that the bridge was carved from. Guitar is much more responsive now. Most of the time if someone said that, I'd chalk it up to confirmation bias but it previously *NEVER* fed back and now it goes into feedback pretty easily
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06-09-2024 06:12 PM
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Looks very good Jack! The feedback thing just goes to show what a mysterious contraption the archtop is. Sometimes the generally accepted wisdom holds and sometimes it doesn't.
Another EG: laminate guitars are supposedly more feedback resistant than solid wood, but it depends on the actual instruments. My B-120 is livelier than my Lehmann, which has all the same dimensions and appointments but has a thick solid top and all carved body. I've heard the same from another B-120 owner when compared to L5 and Super 400 CES.
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But the good news is that the bridge is now solidly coupled to the top. No medicine has only one effect, and they’re not all beneficial, Jack. You probably have better acoustic sound and power now, but the side effect is feedback. Where are Doug’s Plugs when you need them?
Originally Posted by jzucker
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No good deed goes un-punished.
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You have to read the fine print. Bridge replacement has been reported to cause tremors, hallucinations, rash, blurred vision, palpitations, inflammatory bowel disease, bone pain, pancreatic cancer, arthritis, bleeding gums, sciatica, post nasal drip, and chronic cough. Originally Posted by John A.
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In double blind tests, or is that just subjective and anecdotal? Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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Guitar scientists are not very rigorous, John. Most just throw a little data at you and let you take your pick. Originally Posted by John A.
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"Guitar scientists are not very rigorous"
Is there really such a thing as a "guitar scientist"? I thought they were a mythical creature, like mermaids or the Loch Ness Monster (more like the latter).
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Except the fingerstylers … Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
Guitar scientists are not very rigorous, John. Most just throw a little data at you and let you take your pick.
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How does that work ? Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
The TP's contact to the guitar is the same presumably
the mass of the TP has increased .....
I don't understand this at all
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contact is not the same. The original bridge was collapsing. Originally Posted by pingu
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ok thanks
that makes sense ….
is it louder acoustically now ?
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I would never use a 2 footed bridge ever. Full contact across the top only way to go, much stronger and more stable for everything involved. As i mentioned this allows more even spread of the string tension on top. It takes only a little work but in factory setting they save lots of time using 2 footed bridges. A rosewood saddle might cause it to feedback less and sound better. However, it could easily make it worse. Terribly easy and cheap experiment to give if a try. You can do it at home in minutes.
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Yes, louder acoustically which is why it feeds back more... Originally Posted by pingu
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Is it any less thunky?
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i would say no but the kessel doesn't thunk as much as an older 175. Sadly, none of my guitars has a lot of thunk. The metheny pm120 might be the best in that department. Originally Posted by ccroft
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Another half baked theory down the tubes...
I was working towards: maybe instead of jamming a Gibson box full of cotton you could just put a thin piece of felt under the bridge. Oh well...
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I have replaced solid bases with two-footed bases with good results. Also the opposite. IME some guitars sound better with solid bases, some sound better with footed bases, and I am completely unable to predict which will sound better on any guitar. All I can do is try it and see which I prefer. I would hasten to say that what sounds better to me might not sound better to someone else. I tend to use whatever comes on the guitar when I get it unless I'm dissatisfied with the sound and I've tried all the easier things without success. The saddle also makes a difference, and it may be worth trying different saddles in search of better tone. I've discovered that I don't like metal TOM saddles, and I've removed them from every guitar I own. I've tried reinstalling them to try to get better intonation, but the slightly better intonation was not worth the inferior (to my ears) tone that resulted.
Tone is a completely subjective subject, and thus not the same for everyone. However, I do believe that different bridge designs and materials will give different sounds from an archtop guitar. It's up to the owner/player to decide which is preferable, and swapping bridges on an archtop is easy enough, and worth trying if one is dissatisfied with the tone being produced.
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This has been my experience as well. Different woods, different saddles, full contact vs. a 2 foot contact all make a difference in tone. More than one would think, in fact. Originally Posted by sgosnell
I am OK with metal saddles on a solid body (or semi-hollow) guitar, but on a fully hollow guitar, I like a wood saddle (Nylon is sort of OK, but wood is preferred).
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i'm going to try wood on the L4 1st and then if it goes well, maybe gradually replace on my other ones. Any experience with this bridge? Originally Posted by Stringswinger
https://www.stewmac.com/parts-and-ha...-guitar-bridge
or
Archtop guitar ebony bridge for jazz guitar | eBay
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I have never tried either of those bridges, but the Benedetto bridge looks good and would be my choice between those two. Originally Posted by jzucker
My experience has been that rosewood is slightly warmer than Ebony, but not enough that I would choose a rosewood bridge for a guitar with an Ebony fingerboard unless that guitar was so bright that taming the brightness was part of my objective. And I have found that every piece of wood is different in that regard. Vinny gave me a few wood saddles some years back and I installed an ebony saddle on the L-5CESN that I got from a fellow forum member (Cincy 2). The guitar was a bit bright, so I tried the other Ebony saddle that Vinny gave me and it is much warmer. Vinny tells me that both saddles were Gibson saddles that he bought in the 1970's.
I should also report that my 1935 D'Angelico Excel was restored by Manny Salvador who made an Ebony bridge while my 1937 D'Angelico Style A was restored by Eddie Diehl who made a rosewood bridge. Both sound great. Also to note is that luthier Maurice Dupont uses rosewood bridges on his Gypsy guitars. The ones that look like Ebony are "ebonized" rosewood.
So many choices! I have never had intonation problems with a Gibson archtop equipped with a wood saddle and I way prefer the pingless, more acoustic tone. And if sustain is an issue, nothing sustains better than a Les Paul. Trying to make a carved archtop sound more "electric" seems like a strange choice to me. Just saying.
Good luck! (you can always reinstall the TOM if you do not like how things turn out).Last edited by Stringswinger; 06-18-2024 at 12:15 PM.
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And in this particular case, does it do the Run in more or less parsecs? Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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My luthier has some really old brazilian rosewood that's very dark but not quite black. He carved a footer for my Kessel. I'm tempted to go with that but of course it won't match the ebony on the fingerboard...OTOH, the finish is sunburst and the pickguard is brown so... Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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I replaced the bridge and saddle on my archtop recently aiming for ebony bridge with the matching ebony saddle, but that one turned out to have not enough radius. So now it wears the IRW+bone-insert saddle. That didn't even look too weird next to the sun-burst finish before I oiled the untreated and very orange-brownish RW. Just wiping it with fretboard lemon oil turned the RW dark enough to be match the black base closely enough. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
Afterwards I started reshaping the original Loar saddle and noticed the wood had had an oak-like colour underneath the black top, at least where I sanded of material. My contact at The Loar affirmed that their bridges are all ebony, but that it's possible to come across very atypical colours in ebony.
It's hard to assume that such differences in appearance don't also impact the transmission of vibration and thus the sound of an acoustic instrument.
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Somehow, I don't think you can go wrong with Brazilian rosewood. It is a celebrated guitar tonewood for good reason. If that were an option for me, that would be my choice. Originally Posted by jzucker
I have a Dupont bridge that is black, but it has the word "Brazilian" handwritten underneath. It is from 1993 and came with the guitar (his upmodel MD-20) when new. It looks and sounds great, so you could use "ebonized" Brazilian if your luthier can figure out how to "ebonize" it. Contact Tommy Davy at Django guitars. He will know how to do that.
TOMMY DAVY
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