>In a message dated 95-12-30 18:21:50 EST, you write: >> >>Does anyone know where I could purchase stock for a bass bridge? I'd like >>to try doing it myself. If you have basic power woodworking tools, you can make your own. We buy 3x3x36 and sometimes 4x4x36 or longer maple turning squares from a local lumberyard (MacBeaths in Berkely). We then rip them on the table saw and run them through an inexpensive Ryobi planer. You can use this for solid bridges or caps. Any finish thicknessing can be done with a hand plane on the bench before glue-up or after. It's best to hand-pick them to get ones with close, straight, non-curly grain, and while it would seem ideal to get grain aligned with one of the sides so you could have perfectly quarter-sawn wood, it does have a tendency to tear as it goes through the planer (and for that matter, when hand-planing after the stock is glued on), so we often get wood where the grain is about five or ten degrees off from being aligned with the sides of the board. I have also used backposts from old junked uprights for stock. Talk about well-aged ! You have to make sure they're maple, though. Bob Davis, RPT
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