Brazilian Rosewood Bridge

django'spooltalent

Hi guys, I'm building a bridge for myself and was curious if anyone has tried a brazilian rosewood bridge? Does anyone know what kind of rosewood the original selmer/mac bridges were made of?

Thanks,

Djam on

gitpicker

Dupont bridges are brazilian Rosewood. At least the one I ordered from Jasques sometime back was. I assume they all are.

Josh Hegg

There are many species of Rosewood that people call Brazilian. It's not that they are trying to be underhanded it's just that many species look the same and some times are sold to the builder as Brazilian because of the look. Most wood sellers are not concerned about tonal quality only looks. So if it looks like Brazilian that is all they care about. That is why luthiers find a good wood source and buy up what they can....

That being said... I have used Brazilian, Nicaraguan, Honduras, Madagascar among many others for bridges. All of them had tonal differences. Much of the tonal differences can be evened out by design and construction but every species is going to have it's own sound. I have yet to find a Rosewood species that made a poor sounding bridge when built correctly.

From the research I have done it looks like the Selmer bridges were made from many different species of Rosewood. They used what they had as long as it was Rosewood. Brazilian was easy to get back then so they had allot of it. But it looks like maybe they used some other species as well in the mix.

Cheers,
Josh