Pinless Bridge Questions

[JayBee1404]

Originally Posted by s11141827

Pinless bridges have improved over the years because they have screws to reinforce them & use a double bridge pad. The technology is more updated than it used to be.

No screws in a Lowden bridge, they’re just glued. And I’ve seldom seen or heard of a Lowden bridge ‘flying off’. I have, however, seen and heard regular reports of pin-bridges separating.

Not sure what you mean by a ‘double bridge pad’. If you mean the bridge-plate, Lowdens have no such thing, just a regular one-piece plate.

[Alan Carruth]

More than 20 years ago we had a Lowden in the shop that lost it's bridge suddenly. We heard the 'bang' from the back room, and found the bridge hanging from the strings. On inspection we saw that there was 100% wood shear: the glue line didn't fail, but the cedar peeled up, out to a sharp line all the way around the edge of the bridge. The person who scored the finish on the top to clean it up for gluing had cut too deeply into the top, producing a stress riser, particularly along the back edge. Cedar has low peel strength, so it was just a matter of time before it would come up.

We hypothesized that the worker had just replaced the blade in his knife, and was not used to using such a sharp one, so they put too much pressure on the cut. We wrote to Lowden about it, suggesting that in future people would start each day with a fresh blade, but never heard back. I hope they got the message.