Grain direction

[peter havriluk]

What individual personal builders do does not have to mimic what factories, or serial boutique builders, do. Us cellar builders don't have, and aren't about to have, costly tools to save ten minutes on a bridge, as well on a whole lot else.

I thought the earlier comment about cutting the saddle slot all the way through the bridge first made good sense to an amateur (aka limited experience, as I am) builder. The builder can make up a saddle slot floor known to be level and of a measured thickness, and glue it in. One bridge with a saddle slot with a level bottom of known thickness and no messing around with the router bit depth. Sounds good to me. No factory would do that, bit I can see merit in it for myself. I'll bet there's a dozen other things an amateur builder could do, too, that would help the job along.

I'd love to see more.

[Dave Bagwill]

I get what you're saying, Peter and I like your thinking. If the end result of an easier process yields the same results as a harder process, go easier! Why not?

[K Wiebusch]

I have chosen to let it go. It was more of a practice bridge that came out nice looking. I came up with a way to cut slots on my drill press that came out clean rather than wrestling my dremmel. I can do it again. Thanks Gents!

[banjopicks]

I'd like to be able to do it in my drill press. Do you slide the bridge by hand or do you have a fancy vise?

[K Wiebusch]

I use a piece of poplar as a fence held down with c clamps. I cut one side of the blank to the same angle as the saddle offset. I used a spiral end mill and punched most of it out vertically and then pushed it by hand to clean it up. You can put a shim under a side of the the blank if you want to angle the slot. I should have taken pictures.

[Carl Dickinson]

I've been using a HF milling vise for this type of cut. It took some fine tuning to get the slop out enough for accurate cuts. The drill press needs to be set for it's highest speed.

[banjopicks]

It seems to me that a perfectly quartersawn bridge would be more apt to split since the grain lines are in line with the pegs all the way through. I would think riff sawn would be better for bridges. Just thinking out loud.