Bridge cap materials

[Ron Nossaman]

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>Sounds very interesting. Thank you for the explanation. Let me restate my=
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>understanding just to be sure. You take a quarter-sawn hunk of bridge cap=
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>material from either the supply house or a lumber yard and resaw it on a=20
>plane parallel with the soundboard (you know what I mean - the way the cap=
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>wood would be sitting on the bridge/board). Then you basically re-assemble=
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>the same piece of wood only skewing the laminations on 10=B0 angles. So you=
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>end up with your same piece of quarter-sawn maple only now you have the=20
>grain crossing at 10=B0 angles from layer to layer (I hope that makes=
 sense).

Yes, except it doesn't necessarily have to be quarter sawn. It doesn't have=
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to be 10=B0 either, 5=B0, or 7=B0, or whatever will work too. Most wood=
 isn't cut=20
parallel to the long grain, nor is the long grain usually exactly straight.=
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When you are putting together a stack for gluing, you swap slabs end for=20
end, or flip them over, to get cross ply angles from the natural run of the=
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grain relative to the edges of the slabs. That way, you can have the slabs=
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all stacked together with parallel edges when you glue them up, without=20
wasting wood squaring them up after assembly. Grain just 3=B0 off parallel=
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the edges of the slab will make a 6=B0 cross ply with every other one=20
flipped. Let the material work for you.


>Can I assume that with this process you end up with a lot of wasted wood?

Yes, in the re-sawing and planing. That's why I'd prefer rotary cut=20
material if I could find it in less than $5000 lots.


>  How do you clamp your laminations? I should think the assembly would be=
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> too wide for your pneumatic clamps. Do you just use a whole bunch of=20
> clamps closely spaced?

Pinblock scrap cauls, top and bottom, and however many clamps look right.


>Then you mention rotary cut maple. Now how would you go about making a=20
>high quality cap out of that?
>
>Terry Farrell

Just like that.

Ron N

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