bridge & saddle material

[chris c]

I recently bought the excellent Jacques Stotzem Signature model. One thing that puzzles me, is that the bridge is ebony. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but I remember Jacques' guitar had a Brazilian rosewood bridge. Did you switch from rosewood to ebony for a particular reason ?

Also the saddle is a standard Tusq saddle, just like the one on a Larrivée I had. I have a little promotional card for the JS Signature model that says the guitar comes with a custom compensated saddle. Indeed I remember Jacques' guitar has a saddle with the upper edge shaped like a thunderbolt. Don't know what material it is. Anyway, I would like to replace it by bone because it generally seems to warm up the sound a bit. Is it OK to use a bone saddle with a UST ? Can I order a custom saddle for this guitar from Avalon ?
I'll also replace the plastic bridge pins by ebony or bone.

Thanks and keep up the good work !

[JB]

Hi Chris

We use both Brazilian Rosewood and Ebony on the Gold series so that's not unusual.

There were a few JS models that left the factory with a Tusq comp saddle instead of the hand cut bone.
I will gladly send you a replacement bone saddle but please be aware that you would have to adjust the height of the saddle as each saddle is "exactly fitted" to each individual guitar before it leaves the factory ... not all guitars have the same saddle height.

Just send me your full address in an e-mail to jim@avalonguitars.com
Cheers
Jim

[chris c]

Thanks a lot Jim, this is very helpful.
Did you detect any difference in tone between a Brazilian rosewood and an ebony bridge ?

[JB]

The short answer to that is no .... the long answer to that is I don't no and here's the reason.

Every guitar we make is hand-built from solid timbers throughout, hand-cut, hand-carved, hand-sanded, hand-finished etc etc and each piece of timber is always different ... so ... any 2 guitars will "never" sound the same even if made from the same woods.

Now I hope you see where I'm going

If we make 2 guitars from the same woods and have a Rio bridge on one and an Ebony on the other they may sound similar or they may sound different but the big question is what changed the sound, if any ?

Was it the bridge ?
The tightness of grain in the soundboard ?
The amount of carving the struts/bracing received ?
Maybe even the type of rosewood used ?
Or even the mahogany in the neck construction ?

Remember we glue all our bridges on directly to the soundboard wood not the lacquer, so we can not simply put on a Rio bridge on, test the sound, take it off and replace it with an Ebony one to see any differences.

Unfortunately it's not always easy to say yes or no to certain sound characteristics of a guitar.

Hope this is helpful
Jim

[chris c]

Thanks Jim ! If it doesn't make a discernable difference in tone, I think I prefer the look of an ebony bridge. It matches the fretboard and the tuner buttons and everything that's in contact with the strings is black. This makes the guitar look more "together". So I'm happy