Walnut for a bridge?

[Adam Cooke]

Howdy MIMFers,
It's been a very long time since I've been cruising these boards, and it's great to see it thriving. I'm extremely grateful for all who have given freely of their time and talent to make me a better builder.

I'm in the home stretch of finishing up a jumbo sized macassar/mun ebony guitar. I made a bridge out of some lovely Claro walnut I had lying around the shop. Now that I'm just about to attach it to the guitar, I'm having second thoughts.

Has anyone used walnut for an acoustic bridge? My main concern is that the wood isn't really dense enough to fully "drive" the top, and that the guitar's projection and response will suffer as a result. Secretly I'm hoping I'm wrong so that I don't have to make a new bridge, but I don't want to glue it on only to have to take it off right away.

Thoughts?

[Josh Humphrey]

I have used black walnut twice, once on a small bodied guitar with a very bright tone, and once on a large bodied guitar with very warm tone. I would say the results were pretty much exactly what I expected; I don't think I lost any tone, volume, sustain etc. by using walnut, but I suppose the only way I could find out is to do some recordings, rip the bridges off, replace with rosewood or ebony, and rerecord. I was plenty happy with the result, and would do it again in the right situation.

[Mark Swanson]

Welcome back Adam. I have used walnut for bridges quite a bit and it will work just fine. Don't expect it to act as a heavy ebony bridge will, or even like a rosewood bridge but in spite of that it has its own nice sound. And as far as holding up, Ovation has used them on a million guitars and they work out well. The main problem I have seen in the Ovation walnut bridges is that they frequently come off and that isn't because they are walnut! Either the glue they use sucks, or the fact they are pinless and the top buckles up and the bridge pops off, but those things are not the fault of the walnut.

[Peter Wilcox]

I'm making an instrument with a Peruvian walnut bridge, fretboard, binding, headstock veneer and carving. Glad to know it's at least OK for the bridge. It may be a little soft for the fretboard, but I don't think it's ever going to get a lot of playing hours. Plus the top, back, sides and neck are also made from inappropriate woods.

[Alan Carruth]

Walnut makes a good bridge if you use it right. You have to take it for what it is; softer and less dense and strong than 'the usual suspects', and design accordingly.

The bridge's 'job' is to tell the string how long it is. It does that by being massive and stiff enough to present a solid 'end' for the string to vibrate from. Of course, if it were too massive and stiff the top of the guitar would not be able to move or produce sound, so theres a balance to be struck there.

Walnut's a lot less dense than the rosewoods or ebony, so a bridge of a 'normal' size will weigh a lot less. This tends to favor treble in the sound: a more massive bridge is harder to move at high frequencies. (It's harder to move period, of course, but the differecne is greater in the high end) A walnut bridge will probably end up giving a 'brighter' sound than one the same size made of rosewood. For a six-sring steel, I tend to shoot for a bridge weight of around 28-32 grams. Much less than 25 can be pretty bright, and more than 35 will cost a lot of treble and power, at least on my guitars.

It's easy enough to make the bridge heavier, if you want to, and can even be advantageous. If you make it wider (or 'deeper' along the line of the string pull), you can add some mass and also get more glueing surface, to help keep it from peeling up. This can be a real advantage on some tops, such as redwood and cedar, which have lower peel strength than spruce.

Another good reason to make the bridge wider is to get a little more wood in front of the saddle slot, to help keep it from splitting out. This is not a bad idea even on rosewood bridges, but it becomes more necessary with a softer wood like walnut. I like to have at least 5mm of wood in front of the saddle, instead of the usual three or so. Routing the saddle slot so that it leans back, as seen from the side view, helps a lot with that too. I use a nine dregee angle there, as suggested by Rick Turner.

The Peruvian walnut I've seen has bee much softer than either Claro or Black, and I'd be really careful about the bridge design and constuction with that wood, particularly as regards the saddle slot.

Ovation epoxies the bridge on top of the epoxy finish. That's not a great system, IMO.

[Adam Cooke]

Thanks a bunch for all the great info. That's exactly what I was looking for.

Alan, I appreciate the details with regards to tone. Since its a jumbo that I'm building I think (or hope, more accurately) that bass won't be a problem so I'm going to go ahead and finish it up with the Claro. The wings are a tad thin but I don't think it will cause a problem.

Cheers!

[David Schramm]

Gilbert guitars use a walnut bridge. I have a 1998 Bill Gilbert with a walnut bridge. I think John and Bill have been using walnut for the past 20 years. John told me he liked it because the walnut they use has the stiffness of Brazilian rosewood but is lighter in weight. Sadley, John passed away in February.

[Charlie Schultz]

Hi David and welcome to the forum!

[Bill Hodge]

Not much more I can add to what's already been said especially after Alan's always well articulated and informative post. That said, I've used Claro bridges on two, one smaller body (OM size) with a Doolin inspired pinless bridge, a Cocobolo bridge plate underneath, on a premium grade Sitka top and Mesquite body, with a Claro neck, and it is nicely bright with good balance. (in a better player's hands that is ) The other is on a Jumbo Coco & Engelmann with a maple Bridge plate and Claro neck, it is also well balanced with a rich tone. I know this doesn't add anything much, just wanted to get a few posts in on the new site.

[Schennelly Stoughton]

Hi Adam , I used a walnut bridge on the the cedar / walnut dred I built and it sound very nice , well balanced just a little on the bright side .