The bridge of the guitar plays a crucial role. It transfers the energy produced from the vibrating strings to the soundboard of the guitar. The soundboard then vibrates much like the diaphragm of a speaker, which produces the sound. The bridge acts also like a brace across the soundboard. It stiffens up the soundboard, and has a large factor in how the guitar sounds.

To build the bridge we start with a rectangular piece of ebony, and plane it down to thickness.


The wings are carved out next.


Then we cut a number of slots using a fine toothed saw and carve out sections from the block to give it the shape we desire.



Here I am carving out slots to be overlaid with bone.


Strips of bone are then glued in the slots.


The finished bridge.


Next I will French-Polish the instrument before gluing on the bridge. In traditional Spanish guitar construction the bridge is glued onto the soundboard before the instrument is finished. It is an interesting tradeoff, since doing a French-Polish is more difficult when the bridge is already glued, but it avoids the next step which is scraping off the finish...

Next: Finish

Construction