4 Bridge System Madness.

[fscotte]

Why do you think that? Just curious.

A short lever would have less control over the top.. would it not? If you isolate each string on a post about 1/8" wide (if possible without damaging the top) how would that exert more or the same amount of force on the top as a bridge that extends from one side to the other.

Que, Dr. Cohen, but I see this thing as a lever, or better yet, a see saw, nothing more.

[Timbofood]

This is going to be fun!

[fscotte]

Pete, you could also superglue the posts to the top and possibly forego the crossbrace?

[Timbofood]

I was thinking something like the links on a bicycle chain thin plates with a hole in each end just heavy enough to keep thing from slipping toward the center. If this makes a billion dollars, it was my idea for that!

[Marty Jacobson]

A short lever would have less control over the top.. would it not? If you isolate each string on a post about 1/8" wide (if possible without damaging the top) how would that exert more or the same amount of force on the top as a bridge that extends from one side to the other.

Que, Dr. Cohen, but I see this thing as a lever, or better yet, a see saw, nothing more.

Interesting, thanks. To clarify, which direction do you think the forces are acting in? The width of the bridge, or the thickness of the bridge?
An easy way to test this (besides some quick free body diagrams for sanity checking) is to make a 50% wider than normal bridge in whichever direction is appropriate. I have done wider bridges (s-shaped like Weber mandola bridges designed by Vern Brekke), but not especially long bridges.

[fscotte]

Dave can certainly clarify the motion of bridges. Rocking sideways, forwards? Maybe another motion as well.

There's some videos of strings in slow motion and they have this whipping motion, stabilized at the bridge and the nut. In minute terms that's really kicking the bridge around, a mechanical force. But it's not really just the bridge, it's the entire top. The bridge makes solid contact with the top, so it is one entity. You could essentially carve a bridge out of the top plate.. if it were possible.

I think you've read Dave's papers and posts, so he will correct any issues, but that's my take on it, no matter how scientific or unscientific it may be.



For Pete's bridge to work, he'll need to forego the crosspiece somehow, otherwise he's just making a Loar bridge more complex by adding two extra feet and a crosspiece that isn't connected to the feet.

[Rick Lindstrom]

"Modern" mandolin design reached its zenith with Bill Monroe and the Loar F5. It's pretty obvious that anything different from the standards it set won't work. Give it up Pete.

[DougC]

Going out on a limb here. My first impression is that the strings may need to share overtone frequencies at the string spreader or a regular bridge, where they usually do it. Do they do it within the instrument? To what extent? Hmmmm?

[sblock]

"Modern" mandolin design reached its zenith with Bill Monroe and the Loar F5. It's pretty obvious that anything different from the standards it set won't work. Give it up Pete.

Well, you really had me going until I saw that emoticon winking back at me! This comment would be more amusing if it weren't for the fact that so many Bluegrass mandolinists actually seem to believe it. Of course, this same type of thinking pervades other musical genres, as well. Onward through the fog, I say!!

[Dale Ludewig]

Pete, I think you're beginning to resemble this guy.



CARRY ON!

[Rick Lindstrom]

Well, you really had me going until I saw that emoticon winking back at me! This comment would be more amusing if it weren't for the fact that so many Bluegrass mandolinists actually seem to believe it. Of course, this same type of thinking pervades other musical genres, as well. Onward through the fog, I say!!

I may have intended a wee tiny morsel of irony with that comment. I mean, after all, everybody is working madly to recreate a design that was new almost a hundred years ago.

I can't think of any real innovations in mandolin technology since time came to a halt in 1924.

[fscotte]

Kinda goes for most stringed instruments from guitar to piano. It's somewhat amazing that the "alleged" pinnacle of acoustic stringed instrument design was achieved so long ago, with only minor and occasional useful tweaks here and there. In the case of acoustic piano, it's as if they knew what had to be done but simply did not have the technology to build it until the early twentieth century.

[Marty Jacobson]

I can't think of any real innovations in mandolin technology since time came to a halt in 1924.

Whoa, that's a very sweeping statement. Is it hyperbole/litotes?
If not, what do you consider "innovations"?

How about some of the following, just off the top of my head:
- Modern varnish finishes
- Radiused & compound radiused fretboards
- Magliari compensated fretboards
- Carbon fiber mandolins
- Carbon fiber neck stiffeners
- More efficient manufacturing techniques (CNC, FFT spectrum analysis, etc.)
- Cast tailpieces, James tailpieces, etc.
- Anything designed by Verne Brekke, especially the Brekke bridges in both wedge-adjust and thumbscrew variants

Lots and lots more... just read through the Big Red Books of American Lutherie and you'll be astonished. I believe every single luthier who has built 10+ instruments has developed useful innovations in the craft. Any many luthiers come up with useful innovations on their very first instrument. It is far from a static set of objectives or processes.

Also, there are many different mandolin voices out there. Every single on of my customers describes something which is a little different. I don't think that there is one single pinnacle of mandolin technology that would satisfy all of them. Even if I could make a Loar sound-alike for $3000, not everybody would choose it.

[Killian King]

I've got no idea what you're talking about Mike but If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious sh*t.

[Bob Clark]

. . . That's why I need to get a wide tail piece. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who can tell me how to make one.

Please forgive me if this idea has already been suggested or if you've solved the tailpiece issue some other way, but how about making a tailpiece like Walt Kuhlman makes for some of his mandolins, but even wider? If you made one wide enough, the strings would continue in a straight line below the bridge to the tailpiece. He posted this picture in another thread a while back. It's of a nylon-strung mandolin I now own, but I thought a tailpiece like this, but even wider, might help your experiments.

[Pete Jenner]

Yes it would indeed Bob.

[Rick Lindstrom]

Whoa, that's a very sweeping statement. Is it hyperbole/litotes?
If not, what do you consider "innovations"?

How about some of the following, just off the top of my head:
- Modern varnish finishes
- Radiused & compound radiused fretboards
- Magliari compensated fretboards
- Carbon fiber mandolins
- Carbon fiber neck stiffeners
- More efficient manufacturing techniques (CNC, FFT spectrum analysis, etc.)
- Cast tailpieces, James tailpieces, etc.
- Anything designed by Verne Brekke, especially the Brekke bridges in both wedge-adjust and thumbscrew variants

Lots and lots more... just read through the Big Red Books of American Lutherie and you'll be astonished. I believe every single luthier who has built 10+ instruments has developed useful innovations in the craft. Any many luthiers come up with useful innovations on their very first instrument. It is far from a static set of objectives or processes.

Also, there are many different mandolin voices out there. Every single on of my customers describes something which is a little different. I don't think that there is one single pinnacle of mandolin technology that would satisfy all of them. Even if I could make a Loar sound-alike for $3000, not everybody would choose it.

Pretty much everything you mention is more or less an incremental improvement. Like going from v1.0 to v1.1 or something like that. Some kind of major innovation, which hasn't happened as far as I can tell, would be like going from v1.0 to v2.0. Or like going from Windows XP to Windows 7 if you follow my drift. Apologies to you Mac and Linux users out there.

Carbon fiber mandos almost qualify, but it's still really just the same old design executed in a different medium. As far as voice goes, every mandolin has it's own unique voice. No two are identical, and it's always been that way. Maybe the CF mandolins all sound the same, but I wouldn't know because I've never heard any of those in person. What a shame it would be if they all did sound identical.

[Bertram Henze]

...Or like going from Windows XP to Windows 7 if you follow my drift. Apologies to you Mac and Linux users out there.

Apology accepted. However, XP to 7 is just an increment to me (wouldn't exactly call "less frequent freezing up" or "looking more like OSX ten years ago" an innovation), and improvement remains a vast untapped potential with Windows...

A real innovation must enable applications not possible before, like, for instance, the jet engine vs. the propeller.

[Pete Jenner]

Windows 7, when properly set up with minimal background processes running is as good as XP. For me it's better because I went from 32 bit to 64 bit thereby allowing me to access all 16 gigs of memory. Windows 8 on the other hand is complete rubbish.

[Rick Lindstrom]

Windows 7, when properly set up with minimal background processes running is as good as XP. For me it's better because I went from 32 bit to 64 bit thereby allowing me to access all 16 gigs of memory. Windows 8 on the other hand is complete rubbish.

I like Windows 7 a lot, but the reason I switched from XP (which did everything I needed just fine) was because Microsoft pulled the plug on it as far as support and updates. I agree that Win8 was probably pretty bad (never used it), but it seems like 8.1 (incremental advance-LOL) addressed a lot of the problems 8 had.

I read somewhere that Microsoft plans to give away Windows 10 free to people that are running registered versions of Win7 and above. That should be interesting.

Actually, I liked Windows 2000 pretty well. When it first appeared, MS intended to call it NT 5.0 (major version update-LOL again), and I'm pretty sure that everything MS has done with Windows since then has been elaboration on the NT 4.0 platform.

The regularly scheduled program of mandolin related content will now resume........

[Pete Jenner]

I liked Dos 5, Dos 6.22 and Windows 3.11. Then Windows 2000, XP and 7. ME was rubbish as was Vista, 95 was bad but 98 was better. I upgraded to 7 because my son bought it for me.

No work on the bridge system for a few days - real life intervenes.

[Rob Zamites]

I'm an OS X guy. Just call me a heretic, but it works for GUI/Music stuff well, and has a command line back end/*nix framework (I'm a Linux admin).

[sblock]

Wow, folks seem to be having trouble staying on topic. And some of us here are old enough to remember OS's like RSX, RT-11 (both DEC) and CP/M and ZPR3 (for the Z80 chip). Thank the gods for evolution, I say!

[fscotte]

DOS 2.1 = Loar
Windows 10 = Pete Jenner

[Pete Jenner]

Haha.

Don't tell anyone but I run Fedora GNU/Linux on my laptop.