EIR or ebony for steel string bridges and fingerboards?

[Anders Eliasson]

Hi all

This might be a trivial question that has been discussed 100 times, so I´ve seached in the library/wood section and I havent found anything.
So would you use EIR or ebony for OM steel string bridge and fingerboard? And why?

When building nylon strings. You never use ebony for the bridge. So I wonder how much it´ll influence in sound production.

[Alan Carruth]

I don't know who put forward this notion that the bridge and fingerboard are supposed to match. Maybe it derives from the fact that Martin has used ebony for both on their better models for a long time. What Martin does is automatically 'right', and folks have gone looking for 'the reason'.

In many respects, ebony is the ideal fingerboard wood. It's harder than most woods, darker than anything else, and close grained. It resists wear, holds the frets well, smooths out nicely. and doesn't show dirt. The major drawback with the stuff is that it's not as stable as you'd like, and expands and contracts differently than the usual neck woods with humidity swings, which doesn't help. Unless you're copying something like an old Gibson, want to cut the weight of the neck to the minimum, as on a Flamenco, or avoid using a tropical/non-native wood altogether, ebony is the logical choice.

I was taught to match the bridge with the headstock veneer for appearance when possible. This is usually pretty easy to do, looks good, and allows you to choose the bridge wood on acoustic and structural grounds, rather than being tied to your fingerboard choice. Although I'm not necessarily a devote of the 'lightest possible bridge' approach, there certainly are good reasons for using something less dense than ebony on most guitars. Ebony also has higher damping than many of the alternatives, and many people feel that's an important consideration too. Finally, ebony has rather more tendency to split than many of the other 'usual suspects', which makes it a less than desirable choice for a bridge in my opinion. There are times when it makes sense to use ebony for the bridge, nonetheless, and an intelligent choice of grain direction can mitigate some of the issues.

In many cases it's likely enough that swapping in an ebony bridge instead of some other wood would not make a lot of difference, so why worry? I think most people would agree, though that the difference between a 'good' guitar and a 'great' one is also small, and it doesn't make sense to tie your hands in regard to little improvements that could help. Remember that Martins are factory instruments, and cannot be individually optimized the way a hand made one can. A few extra grams of mass, and a bit higher damping probably don't make or break the tone on something that's likely to be over built in the first place. When you're trying for the last word in performance, you have to pay attention to this stuff.

Alan Carruth /Luthier

[Anders Eliasson]

So what you´re suggesting is to use a rosewood bridge and an ebony fingerboard..

Thats what I´ve used for nylon string guitars for years. So thats pretty easy. I would NEVER put an ebony bridge on a spanish guitar. And since my clients always want ebony fingerboards, thats what i use. Why complicate life.

[Jeff Highland]

Whilst I have built with ebony bridges in the past, I am unlikely to do so again, for all the reasons Alan has listed above (density , damping, cracking, stability)
Sometimes ebony even curls on the bridge wings while gluing.
As well as that, I find that I like the aesthetics of alternative medium density woods.
My last SS bridge was koa, laminated with Carbon fibre which came out just over 15 grams.

[Anders Eliasson]

Thanks Jeff. Good to see you on another forum.