Bridge cap materials

[Farrell]

I see clearly the reasoning behind an advantage to skewing laminations of quarter-sawn maple for a cap. I understand how you can laminate rotary or flat sawn maple into a cap, but I don't understand why it would make for a good cap. Won't you end up with something that is essentially a flat-sawn cap? I guess I don't know too much about why it is said that a quarter sawn cap is better than a flat sawn cap - I guess I just assume that experience has shown that the quarter sawn is stronger - more resistant to crushing by the string. If you are using rotary cut or flat sawn laminations, does this work because the glue makes the wood stronger overall? It's easy for me to imagine that flat/rotary sawn maple would hold a pin better (because the pins would be going through multiple layers of the more dense dry season or late summer wood - which would be the case whether it is laminated or if it is flat sawn).

What about carbon fiber - or some other nice hard plastic? Isn't there a nice homogeneous non-biotic material that has all the right properties of hardness, glueability, cutability, etc.? (Kinda fun making up your own words!)

Terry Farrell

  SNIP