24 replies to this topic

[Janito]

What do folks think about making holes in bridges to reduce weight?

http://www.linkedin....ack=.gmp_849287

[Mr Sargent's posts in 2nd half of the discussion]

[Brad Dorsey]

What do folks think about making holes in bridges to reduce weight?...

I think it works. Making holes in anything reduces the weight.

[FiddleDoug]

Sure, drill all the holes that you want. After you screw up the bridge, take your fiddle to you're local luthier and have a proper bridge fitted. He/she could use the business. As for holes improving the sound, don't count on it.

[ctviolin]

Sure, drill all the holes that you want. After you screw up the bridge, take your fiddle to you're local luthier and have a proper bridge fitted. He/she could use the business. As for holes improving the sound, don't count on it.

Without bothering to sing up to watch the video, I think I agree with this.

The POINT of a bridge isn't to reduce the weight to a great degree. In fact, I rely on the average weight of the bridge in most cases. I even prefer the bridge a bit heavier than average in some applications.

[duane88]

Have you ever seen some of the drilled out bicycles that folks used to race?

You can drop quite a bit of weight from a Campy crank with a drill. Will you live through the day with it? Well...

Using his logic, why not drill out the scroll?

[Addie]

Bridge holes to reduce weight... these bridges will no doubt wind up in the same bin as those hollow soundposts.

I seem to recall pictures of a bottom block with holes as well?

[lyndon]

a bridge is already supplied to you with a whole bunch of holes/cutouts, if you want to reduce weight you can carve the holes bigger or simply thin the bridge, drilling holes in the feet is making it weaker in one of the places you dont want to be weaker IMO

[Nicolas Temino]

You can drill holes and if that does not satisfy you 100%, you can also do some acupuncture.
I reduce my bridges weight by making the standard holes bigger, and that amazingly works!

[Don Noon]

Some lightweighting holes on the "Jupiter" Strad

[MikeC]

The more mass something has, the more energy it takes to move it. That's why mutes mute, because they have mass and inertia and therefore absorb energy from the strings. You can remove mass by removing a mute and then you are left with just the bridge. You can further remove mass from the bridge by drilling holes. Drilling holes can reduce it's mass without reducing stiffness. Therefore a bridge with holes drilled in it will allow more of the strings energy to transfer into the sound plates. This is not an argument for or against. It is just logic.

Live long and prosper.

[vclatl]

.... drilling holes in the feet is making it weaker in one of the places you dont want to be weaker IMO

Actually, Janos Starker has long advocated the drilling of conical holes in the feet of the bridge. He doesn't claim that it gives more volume, but greater energy of overtones (which as far as I'm concerned is basically the same thing, although I'm sure all the luthiers here would argue that point with me...) He still holds that claim, based on his memoir, "The World of Music According to Starker" (highly recommended, BTW...)
If memory serves, he got the idea sitting in the back of a hall listening to some violinist or another. I think I must still have the book somewhere on my shelves, and if there's any interest I could arrange to reproduce the paragraph here.

[lyndon]

pretty much any removal of wood from the bridge is going to reduce stiffness as well as lower weight, if someone said you can reduce the graduations on a top without effecting stiffness wed think they were crazy, i dont see how the bridge is any different

[vclatl]

pretty much any removal of wood from the bridge is going to reduce stiffness as well as lower weight, if someone said you can reduce the graduations on a top without effecting stiffness wed think they were crazy, i dont see how the bridge is any different

Seems to me the weight or stiffness is immaterial as long as you get the end result you want, and Starker did, for half a century.

[jacobsaunders]

Seems to me the weight or stiffness is immaterial as long as you get the end result you want, and Starker did, for half a century.

Mind you, Menuhin was an ace shoulder rest salesman, although he didn´t use one personaly at all.

[Bruce Carlson]

Some lightweighting holes on the "Jupiter" Strad

Maybe they're trying to compensate for the dense ebony inserts under the strings.

Here's a Starker variant done on a violin with fresh varnish.

Bruce

[vclatl]

Mind you, Menuhin was an ace shoulder rest salesman, although he didn´t use one personaly at all.

Not to cavil, but Starker was really not trying to "sell" anything as such. In fact, I've been to master classes with him and have now had 3 former students as colleagues and the topic has never once come up.

As a former and now deceased colleague used to say, "If people with creative minds didn't experiment we'd still be trying to play without an endpin."

Like him or not, you can't deny J.S. has a creative mind.
(and parenthetically, he just celebrated his 88th. birthday!)

[Janito]

Without bothering to sing up to watch the video, I think I agree with this.

The URL I provided is not to the Youtube video, but to a LinkedIn 'forum'.

ps You are thinking of a different person (I assume), but both drill holes through the legs.

[robertdo]

Since we are talking about holes in the bridge, I would like to ask if the kidneys'holes and the ones below have to be symmetric? Since the four strings are different, have anybody tried to test the effect of (really) asymmetric shaping of these holes?

[JSully]

The more mass something has, the more energy it takes to move it. That's why mutes mute, because they have mass and inertia and therefore absorb energy from the strings. You can remove mass by removing a mute and then you are left with just the bridge. You can further remove mass from the bridge by drilling holes. Drilling holes can reduce it's mass without reducing stiffness. Therefore a bridge with holes drilled in it will allow more of the strings energy to transfer into the sound plates. This is not an argument for or against. It is just logic.

Live long and prosper.

So? That isn't always preferable. To use an automotive example, you can take the counterweights off a crankshaft and the balance shafts out of an engine, too. Sure, it'll free up some horsepower, but at what is likely a noticeable penalty to the NVH. Might not be able to rev as high either, ultimately penalizing your maximum power(we'll ignore all the other variables like cams, combustion chamber shape, valves, how well the manifolds and head flow, limitations of forced induction, etc for the moment)

pretty much any removal of wood from the bridge is going to reduce stiffness as well as lower weight, if someone said you can reduce the graduations on a top without effecting stiffness wed think they were crazy, i dont see how the bridge is any different

I'm not smart enough to know if instrument bridges would be one of these applications, but there are plenty of instances where you can remove weight at no penalty(or minimal/acceptable penalty) to stiffness in a material science/engineering sense.

Of course, whether it would be a good idea to do so is another set of questions dependent on the application.

[lyndon]

stiffness on a load bearing area is dependent on the thickness of the wood(among other things), if you remove wood you remove stiffness, if you remove wood from an area that is not bearing a load, it may have less effect but it still removes stiffness from that area

obviously what you are talking about is there are a lot of areas where reducing mass and hence stiffness, do not lower the stiffness below the needed amount, but youre still reducing stiffness, just perhaps not in an area where that stiffness is needed

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