Bass Bridges made of Spruce!/JD

[John Delacour]

At 3:29 PM -0800 25/2/02, Joseph Garrett wrote:

>JD,
>You must have gotten some bad fumes or something.

My life is not so infested with poisons and dangers as yours seems to 
be Joe!  I've not seen a product mentioned on this list without its 
deadly properties being pointed out by you :-)

Just in case, however, I stood outside in a bitter English February 
gale for five minutes and breathed deeply before checking my facts....

>  Until proven different, I don't think any builder would make a bass 
>bridge out of Spruce! Not in my experience. So, Name one, please?!

Without even driving to my store, and looking only at the pianos I 
have in the workshop, here are:

1. Ibach 6' grand.  Bass bridge base of 5mm. beech.  Apron of 4mm. 
(sic) maple, bridge proper lower half of quartered pine, pinned half 
of beech.

2.  Lipp upright.  Bridge base of spruce (ca. 15mm), apron of beech 
(ca. 12mm) bridge proper of beech.

Both makes are very highly thought of.

Wolfenden also writes:

"    It is not, however, necessary that it [beech] be used for the 
full height : if there be enough to hold the pins it is sufficient; 
and some makers have taken advantage of this, and made the long 
bridge of spruce or maple for half its height.
     The use of spruce...certainly has a theoretical advantage equal 
to its higher rate of transmission." [JD would dispute this point 
since beech is considerably faster than spruce across the grain and 
faster than maple altogether, though not so pretty]

JD