Don't let Craig fill in the bridge. It's not a bug, it's a feature! ;-) Seriously though, you want to leave the bridge a little too low so that you have adjustment room when wood moves, cottoning changes, etc. Imagine that he "fixes" the bridge and gets it just perfect for you so you don't need to shim it. Three months go buy and the weather changes, you start using AC or a heater, etc. and the various parts of the instrument move about a bit differently (since they are wood and not plastic). Now you either need to shim again anyway (in which case a lot of effort was put into something that didn't fix the problem) or, worse, the strings are now sitting high and dry and you need a whole cotton ball (OK, I'm exaggerating a little, but only a little) to bring them into contact with the wheel). In the latter case, changing the bridge has just create a much bigger problem for you.
Makers deliberately leave the bridge a little short, not because they don't know what they're doing but because they know exactly what they're doing. There are times when it is appropriate to alter a bridge (I saw an instrument where the strings needed to be shimmed almost an eighth of an inch because of huge humidity differences between where it was made and where it was played), in which case resurfacing the bridge made sense (although it still required shimming after the resurfacing because the maker who worked on it knew what he was doing). But in most cases it doesn't make sense. Hope that helps convince Craig that it's not a failure and to just use the papers. -Arle > I also was using too much cotton on my chanterelles. Now, I'm doing > better and I have my cigarette papers in place. Craig doesn't like > that, considers it a lutherie failure. He wants to fill the bridge > grooves and shave them down again, but I think there will always be > times in an HG's life it needs cigarette papers. There is a difference > between having my Bassot in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and > driving it the short distance to the coast. I have to give it a day to > adjust to the humidity and temperature change or it sounds horrid. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hurdygurdy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy The rules of posting, courtesy, and other list information may be found at http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. To reduce spam, posts from new subscribers are held pending approval by the webmaster. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
