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Thread: Bandurria bridge placement

  1. #1
    Registered User LazyRiver's Avatar
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    Default Bandurria bridge placement

    I know not many people are familiar with the bandurria, but I have no where else to turn. I have several bandurrias - two made in Spain, the other in the Philippines. The Spanish instruments have a fixed bridge; the Philippine adjustable. Both fixed bridge instruments suffer from inaccurate bridge placement, causing the low strings - particularly the lowest - to be untunable. Fretting the 12th fret produces an octave plus (ie, sharp tone). There's currently a Spanish made bandurria on eBay. I asked the seller about the low string and he confirmed that it, too, is sharp like mine. This is really puzzling. My local luthier thinks the bridges were placed with nylon strings in mind, even though bandurrias use steel strings. I'm having the bridge moved on one of the instruments. As far as I can tell, both Spanish instruments appear to be otherwise very well made. The Philippine instrument, while tunable and still playable, suffers from a bad sound board warp, so it has a limited life expectancy.

    My question: does anyone know what's going on? Does anyone have a fixed bridge bandurria that is fully tunable?

  2. #2
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bandurria bridge placement

    Quote Originally Posted by LazyRiver View Post
    My local luthier thinks the bridges were placed with nylon strings in mind, even though bandurrias use steel strings. I'm having the bridge moved on one of the instruments. As far as I can tell, both Spanish instruments appear to be otherwise very well made.
    I've run across a large number of bandurria and laud family instruments and almost all seem to have similar bridge placement problems. I've corrected a few, too, either by moving the bridge saddle or the bridge itself (yikes).

    Your luthier friend is right, I think, the makers use fret and bridge placement formula developed for Spanish guitar making.

    I'm sure some of these instruments are made with correct bridge placement, but I have yet to see one.

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  4. #3
    Registered User LazyRiver's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bandurria bridge placement

    It boggles the mind. Must be no one is really playing them. I'm using mine in a string band along with my mandolin. It adds a different color. I prefer the Philippine tuning (F# B E A D G) to the Spanish (G# C# F# B E A).

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  6. #4
    Oscar Stern s11141827's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bandurria bridge placement

    The saddle on the Spanish Bandurria is compensated to solve that problem. Spanish Bandurrias & Lauds (virtually the whole family of those instruments) use a Classical Guitar type Tie Block (aka Pinless) Bridge & tailpiece because the tailpiece helps relieve tension from the top.

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