View Single Post
  #6  
Old 09-28-2021, 11:10 AM
RLetson RLetson is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2021
Posts: 389
Default

The thing about tailpieces and bridges--or saddles or nuts or soundholes or bracing--is that any single element of a guitar is just that: one element in a system in which all the elements interact to some degree. The conventional archtop bridge/saddle is a composite of materials (wood plus height-adjustment thumbscrews) and design, and some modern designs sacrifice easy height adjustment by doing away with the metal bits. Just as some builders follow Benedetto's decision to replace the metal tailpiece attachment with a cello ligature.

The bridges of Selmer-style guitars are often made lighter by hollowing out their undersides, following the less-mass-is-better assumption, but the tailpieces are invariably metal, usually stamped and relatively light. (A common cutomization is a different, usually lighter, bridge.) But Michael Dunn's bridges are solid with larger feet and his tailpieces are generally made from heavier flat stock and have heavy hexagonal string anchors. I'm not sure what role those elements contribute to the characteristic Dunn voice, but I suspect that other construction elements matter more.

I'm not sure what the outcome of a project that marries nylon strings--even the Savarez 520P set with the wound G and B--to an existing archtop would be, but I would be braced for disappointment. Building an archtop with nylon strings as the central part of the design would be something else altogether, though.
Reply With Quote