Ebony Fingerboard & Rosewood Bridge, An Irish Thing?

[larstusor]

I've noticed that some builders (particularly Lowden and Avalon) commonly use ebony for their fingerboards and rosewood for their bridges. It seems more common among other luthiers to match the fingerboard and bridge woods which, to me , is more visually pleasing. Is anyone out there aware of a structural or tone oriented reason for using rosewood as the bridge material as opposed to ebony; or is it just an Irish idioisyncrasy?

[Judson]

Interesting question. That is sort of strange. I hadn't noticed this particular difference, but I did recently notice that Lowden doesn't use bridge pins (at least on some of their guitars) ...

Originally Posted by larstusor

I've noticed that some builders (particularly Lowden and Avalon) commonly use ebony for their fingerboards and rosewood for their bridges. It seems more common among other luthiers to match the fingerboard and bridge woods which, to me , is more visually pleasing. Is anyone out there aware of a structural or tone oriented reason for using rosewood as the bridge material as opposed to ebony; or is it just an Irish idioisyncrasy?

[Howard Emerson]

Originally Posted by larstusor

I've noticed that some builders (particularly Lowden and Avalon) commonly use ebony for their fingerboards and rosewood for their bridges. It seems more common among other luthiers to match the fingerboard and bridge woods which, to me , is more visually pleasing. Is anyone out there aware of a structural or tone oriented reason for using rosewood as the bridge material as opposed to ebony; or is it just an Irish idioisyncrasy?

No, it's actually a very, very common classical guitar thing.

HE

[Wade Hampton]

Some guitar builders I know feel that ebony is too heavy to make the sort of bridge they want on their guitars. So those people feel they can discern a tonal difference, and build accordingly. It would seem that Mr. Lowden and the folks who run Avalon Guitars (which are based on Lowden's designs, and are built in the facility that used to be the Lowden factory) are in that "no ebony for the bridge" design camp.


whm

[Andromeda]

Top of the line Guild acoustics generally have ebony fingerboards with rosewood bridges.

I don't think there is anything Irish about my Martin M-38 - ebony fingerboard and rosewood bridge. Supposedly, ebony, which is denser/heavier than rosewood, dampens/darkens the tone a bit more than rosewood. At least this is what I read...

[Saguache]

I have a custom build OO with a "light top build" and it has a RW bridge. I've wondered about that and this post answers the question.

[larstusor]

Thank you all for the quick and informative responses. I felt certain that there must be some perceived logic behind the choice of a rosewood bridge on some fine guitars (including the non-Irish Martin M-38) that have ebony fingerboards.