<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16441" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2> <DIV><STRONG> <EM> Jd</EM></STRONG></DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>  Nice clear post. Especially the underlined. Comments below</STRONG></EM></DIV> <DIV><EM><STRONG>  </STRONG></EM></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>It seems to me that a laminated hardwood bridge is not only stiffer <BR>but will, stiffness aside, transmit the vibrations more quickly and <BR>efficiently by dint of the direction of the grain.  Add to that the <BR>virtues of ebony or a dense rosewood (dalbergia xxx) and you have <BR>almost certainly a "faster" bridge. <U> What surprises me is that so few <BR>makers have used the simplest expedient to achieve a stiffer bridge, <BR>and that is to make it taller, since the stiffness increases as the <BR>square of the height, so that a 38mm bridge will be twice as stiff as <BR>a 27mm bridge of similar construction and a great deal stiffer than a <BR>27mm bridge using ebony laminations without the horrific cost.</U></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>  <STRONG><EM>I have a 6 ft Julius Bauer that has a very tall bridge.ie roughly 37mm  The belly system is VERY  stiff in spite of the lack of rib support</EM></STRONG></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2><U><BR><BR></U>I'd say the question of mass is very low in importance compared with <BR>questions of stiffness and speed of sound in the bridge.<U>  The bridge <BR>is a transmitter and also a filter.</U>  <U>The capping of the bridge in the <BR>top treble with a suitable hard and dense wood reduces the filtering</U>, <BR><U>which needs to be different in different parts of the scale according</U> <BR><U>to the quality of sound one aims to achieve</U>. </FONT></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>  <STRONG><EM>I especially like this above. I'm not sure I've ever heard it explained that succinctly.  Or... maybe I wasn't listening.</EM></STRONG></DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>  Cheers</EM></STRONG></DIV> <DIV><STRONG><EM>  Dale</EM></STRONG></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>The use of ebony at all <BR>in the tenor and the bass would strike me as a pure waste of money <BR>and likely also to have tonal effects that might not be desirable.<BR><BR>JD</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV></DIV> <DIV> </DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">See what's free at <A title="http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000503" href="http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000503" target="_blank">AOL.com</A>. </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>