Violin Forum/Message Board

ollieken · Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 11:34 am Post subject: Seal Bridge

Any Benefit in sealing the bridge The reason I ask is I was out playing at a camp site & it was damp & cool in the building raining heavy outside .

For a few day`s the fiddle was kind of clamy not bright like it was I took a little scraping off the bridge just a dusting & it was back to normal I have done this before .
Can the bridge swell a bit from moisture & make it dull ?
Or do you think My head swelled & i cant hear ? Any ideas Ken

MANFIO · Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 2:07 pm Post subject:

It's not only the bridge that will absorb water from the air, the whole instrument will do that.

Bridges are not varnished or sealed.
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ollieken · Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 9:34 pm Post subject: Bridge

Manfio Thank you for the reply

Jack H. · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 10:08 am Post subject:

only thing I do to my bridges is to put them in strong sun for a quick tan.
Plenty of strong sun here!

byacey · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 1:18 pm Post subject:

Just about anything you put on a bridge will increase the mass, and possibly soften the maple, depending on how it penetrates into the wood and what it is you're trying to seal it with. Mass on a bridge usually isn't a positive thing as it saps energy from the strings rather than the energy being transferred to the body of the instrument. Make a bridge from any other wood and you'll likely be disappointed.

Maple probably by fluke or natural / empirical selection has about the highest stiffness (or rigidity) to weight ratio of any hardwoods. The rigidity transfers vibration well, and the low mass dampens the string motion as little as possible; an near ideal situation. Applying just about anything will have a negative effect on one or both of these qualities.

I have often thought the ideal violin bridge would have zero weight and the hardness of rock allowing full transfer of the string energy to the top of the violin. So far I have been unsuccessful in finding this magic wood.

Tim McTigue · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 4:20 pm Post subject:

byacey · Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 10:10 pm Post subject:

Is Xanthum also where Xanthanum Gum comes from?

Dave Chandler · Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:50 pm Post subject: bridge seal

Byacey, sounds like a project, making a bridge out of aluminum stock, or perhaps carbon fiber.

Henry Strobel's book calls for sealing the bridge with a bit of thin shellac (I think that's what I read, maybe it was a thin varnish) and I've done that a couple different times, and don't really notice the difference, perhaps it doesn't sink in that deeply to have an impact). I think his reasoning is likely to control its response to humidity changes as you go from one event to another, or even one room to another, and it would seem the mass would change somewhat as it absorbed or released moisture.

So, question. Is the effect of sealing the bridge more/less important than exposing raw wood to the different humidity levels of different venues?

Speaking of mass, I have been going through a lot of bridges lately, trying different trimming and thinning, and find that the most common mistake I make, is in thinning the center of the bridge too much, suddenly the sound becomes terrible. If I put a gob of masking tape on the center of the bridge, suddenly the sound is back, so I start again with a new blank. I've got a small drawer full of failed bridge trimming experiments, but I'm learning what to trim, and how much through trial and error. And, my best investment lately has been a string lifter.
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byacey · Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:21 pm Post subject:

I've done the same thing. Good thing bridge blanks aren't horribly expensive. As you gain experience you learn when not to push your luck trying to wring that last bit of something out of the instrument. I'm also of the opinion even using a bridge jack it takes a few days for the violin to start speaking properly after disturbed in this way.

I've made bridges from plexiglass, lexan and a number of hardwoods, cocobolo the most beautiful, but dead as a doornail; just too much weight. Aluminum suffers the same problem and I'm sure carbon fibre has a high weight to mass ratio too. Whoever arbitrarily chose maple in ancient times either really lucked out with their choice, or somebody did a lot of experimenting back in those days.