Wow, Mr. Parker you are truly the best guitar maker. Thanks for sharing your skill, I just start making my own Electric guitar last year and this video really inspired me.
Your videos are so enlightening. Until viewing your side bending and bridge preliminary explanation videos, I had no idea how their composition and use have led you and other luthiers to come up with the evolving designs and making methods. Thank you very much for taking the trouble to produce these videos.
This is awesome! I had really hoped for a close up view of your bridges one day. Thanks so much for sharing. I just completed my first guitar last week. It's a 15" archtop. Douglas fir top with maple back and sides. Non-adjustable and hollow bridge out of maple and rosewood. I had been making bridges like this for my gypsy jazz guitar and figured it only made sense to apply the same thinking to an archtop.
Thanks a lot Ken! I can't forget playing one of your archtops at the Berlin show.... I went more and more into guitar building and trying to understand this stuff . And so how try to make sound out of wood😊 So thank you so much for your input. Best regards Jens
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 maybe I need to add. At the time of the Berlin show I owned a superb parker fly guitar that was perfect condition and sound. Coming back from the Berlin show I sold it in order to buy tone wood, a band saw and more luthier tools 😊. I did not regret it even when I miss that guitar.. Jens.
Ken you are a genius! I have 4 Parker Niteflys and they are the best guitars I ever played. I feel you are in the same category as Leo Fender, Les Paul, and Ted McCarty, as an innovator. THANK YOU Ken!
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Yes Ken you are a legendary inventor luthier in my book. Parkers are becoming collectors items, and boy I sure wish I could get a spanish fly! I have the 2000 Swamp ash and the 2001 Mahogany which I never see this particular color which is a dark sunburst. Also have a 96 and I believe a 97. Boy if I had $5000 I would buy a spanish fly! Greatest guitars ever!
Good Video. Solid carved one piece Bridge is definitely superior for tone. It takes me a 8-10 hours to carve a Bridge and dial in the action on my personal Arch tops. It’s a long tedious process but well worth the time. I have found Ebony Bridges to be the best for tone. I try to carve/ keep the Ebony bridge light and responsive.
Yeah, there's nothing quick about this bridge fitting and optimization, and it's So important that everything is just right. Seems to me that a light bridge will pay off in responsiveness and volume, so long as it's not so light that it has lots of damping and absorbs energy. Maybe someone will market a hologram device as a home version and we'll all have some fun looking at kinetic images! www.acousticoptimization.com/video/interferometry.jpg
Yep, a spiral wound inclined plane can be thought of as an origin story for the machine variant we call a screw. In the world of adjustable bridges, however, there are some important details to consider as to how these simple machines help to elevate the bridge top. There are three main parts in this design: The bridge base, which remains in position, and supports the stack. The wedge, which slides in and out across the strings to change the bridge height. The top, which supports the strings, and is raised or lowered my sliding the wedge to and fro. This means that there are four important contact surfaces between these three parts which need to - be and remain - straight and flat in order to transfer energy without losses due to rocking. Just saying, this is a challenging structure to build properly. The angle of the wedge must be small, just a couple/few degrees, so it needs to slide quite a bit in order to adjust the height very much. Don't think you can jack things up to play slide, in other words. The wedge bridge will only give a small range of adjustment, and, of course, is incapable of adjusting one side more or less than the other. This means that the wedge is normally longer than the bridge base so that it can fully support the top even when at the ends of its travel. Fair enough, but the bridge certainly looks best with the wedge kinda centered, and looks awkward when it's way over to one side or the other. This means that the wedge must be very carefully sized so that it looks centered when the action is optimal. The problem is that this is a fussy kind of problem to solve, although I suppose one could make an assortment of wedges in different heights. Like I said, fussy, and starts to take the fun out of having an adjustable bridge in the first place. When the wedge is adjusted so as to be jutting out farther on the bass side, it can become a real nuisance by catching the long sleeve or cuff near the player's right hand, or even bump into the wrist. Two more issues, the bridge top should ideally be restrained from shifting sideways when the wedge slides during adjustment, begging for some kind of locating pin or pins to help with this. This is a complication that not all builders include. In this case now you'd need to cut a slot or slots in the wedge to accommodate the pin(s). Finally, there's substantial friction between the carefully fit sliding surfaces which can make adjusting the action troublesome. Watching someone perform this adjustment won't look smooth or easy, and might remind you of a struggle. Sometimes a tiny hammer is used. After all these complaints, I do feel that this design can work fine if these details are carefully worked out. In fact, most of us are the "set and forget" kind of player, who rarely require any adjustment at all once things are dialed in. Good news, if its done right, the wedge bridge has a cool look, and probably can transfer the string's energy better than the shaky little screw adjustment system it replaces. Bad news, see above. Neither easy to build or adjust. One man's opinion.
At one point I had a classical guitar bridge saddle that I left intentionally long so I could adjust the action, similar to this wedge design. I did this until I found the string set and gage that suited me best and eventually cut the remainders off years later. Because its mostly compression, I wonder how well boron fibers like Specialty Material's Hy-Bor would work to lighten the bridge.
That's an excellent idea! I played with boron fibers long ago, and I'm afraid I've forgotten most of what I knew about them, maybe it's time for another look?
So that angle where the strings attach to the tailpiece (bass side longer and treble side shorter) is to purposely balance or equalize the ‘loading’ on the bridge? I know some tailpieces are straight across. Some are like the Epiphone Broadways where it’s like two separate tailpieces for the lower 3 and higher 3 strings to have their own tailpiece and length. And then there’s those trapeze fingered style tailpieces that look like thumb pianos. I never thought to experiment with that aspect until now. It’s tricky sometimes to comprehend what’s more a mod to Art Deco aesthetics vs actual functional acoustically desirable purposeful design. Those old school 1930’-50’s archtops sure got dramatic with the gold and pearl Art Deco-esq pizzazz that went with the era. I’ve dig the vibe of that style but am much more attracted to a cleaner, slightly minimalist approach of form follows function take on the archtop -like you’ve been pulling off for decades! Something about timeless design’. Thanks
Just a note on the tailpiece....Gibson made the part that is now ebony in your example , originally out of celluloid, which off gassed and failed. The pin bridge style repair that you see there is a poor bit of engineering since the pins often touched and damaged the top. I repair them with a solid piece of wood slightly arched to match the fingerboard with holes drilled through the flat and recessed to hide the ball....no more pins and clean look to the guitar.
If you're referring to my cute old 1918 L - 3, I must tell you the tailpiece and bridge are completely original (!!!!), so this is one of the very few tailpieces that haven't failed in the way you cite. Amazing that it's still here, though it is pretty distorted. Your repair method sounds just right. Closeups if you ask nicely.
Do the asymmetrical top arching on the Celestial guitar serve the same purpose as the slightly asymmetrical top bracing of your current archtops? What is the rationale behind this asymmetry, given your explanation of the differences between bridge action in bowed and plucked instruments?
I got to play and closely examine a lovely '30's D'Angelico in Matty Umanov's shop in 1976. The guitar had a nice voice, and impressed me very much. I was surprised to see that he had moved the apex of the arching model under the bridge way over to the treble side, and it made a big impression on me. It seemed to me that Mr. D'Angelico was thinking that this change in the model might enhance the low end response by making the bass side flatter and more flexible, and improve the trebles by doing just the opposite. When I built my next (fourth) archtop, "Celestial", I used this model in an even more pronounced way. I devised a bracing system using a long diagonal bass bar, and five other braces, each one shorter, each one more angled. with the sixth brace very short, and transverse under the treble side of the bridge. This guitar proved to be very successful, and went on to influence a lot of prominent builders. It still sounds and plays great, and has never needed repair or adjustment in these 44 years. All the times I visited Jimmy D'Aquisto, I never got to play one of his guitars in his shop, because everything was under construction, or being repaired. I asked him why he didn't own one of his own guitars, and he replied that he couldn't afford to! When I built the Celestial guitar, I meant to keep it, no matter how broke I got, so as to have an instrument to demonstrate, and fortunately, it's still here in my shop! Even though my work is very different now, I have brought it to several guitar shows in recent years, and it has made lots of friends.
Informative and intriguing! Do you think there's a fundamental difference between the footed design and the full-contact design that makes the one (presumably the latter) inherently better than the other- for an acoustic archtop? Also, are your bridges always bone-capped? If those are replaceable (inserts?) they should provide some means for regulating the action too, no? I find myself changing the bass-side action more often than the treble side, and I don't see how you'd do that with the neck-height action adjustment principle?
Thaddeus McHugh, a Gibson employee, (and friend of Orville Gibson himself) developed both the internal trussrod and the screw adjustable mandolin/archtop bridge in the late teens, applying for patents in 1921. The Gibson Mandolin and Guitar Company was granted patents on both of these in 1923. The original drawings show a full contact bridge base. Later, Gibson used a two foot design, probably to save labor. In many of these bipedal bridges, the two feet were joined by a piece of wood scarcely thicker than a business card, and this allowed the middle of the bridge to flex so that the feet could rest on the top without the trouble of carefully fitting these contact surfaces. Have a look at this talk I gave at the Rocky Mountain Archtop festival in 2019... kenparkerarchtops.com/news/2019/9/30/kens-the-history-and-evolution-of-the-archtop-guitar-keynote-at-the-rocky-mountain-archtop-festival In it, I explain my understanding of the behavior of "two foot" bridges on bowed instruments, and the benefits of using a one piece bridge on an acoustic archtop guitar. Every design has its pluses and minuses of course, but at some point the designer needs to take a stand, and choose one that he believes will satisfy many practitioners. The way I see it, the action on a regular steel string guitar, Electric or Acoustic should be about .015" or .020" higher on the bass side than on the treble side. If you disagree, and you commission a guitar from me, I promise we'll work something out to satisfy you. Thanks for your excellent question.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 And thank you for your interesting answer. If ever I'm in a position to commission an archtop from anyone really, it'd by a nylon-strung. There I might not even need adjustable action - if my nylon-string reso where I don't need it is any indication, but maybe its shorter scale helps prevent fret buzz?! I play with a sort of classical/travis picking hybrid, purely acoustically, and it's proved almost impossible to find steel strings that really satisfy me AND don't buzz as soon as I even think of digging in a bit more on the low strings. My admittedly limited archtop experience to date suggests action could be fixed as low as possible on the treble side (to keep things playable and presumably limit wear on the frets) and adjustably high on the bass side (depending on strings and the piece to be played). I read or heard a claim that your approach to adjusting action does not require retuning. Is that formally/theoretically correct? As far as I can see there's no geometric difference between raising the bridge saddle height or lowering the nut+fingerboard assembly; in both cases the scale length should increase as Pythagoras would have it. Changing the saddle height does change the external break angle and thus the string tension; I can imagine that could have more effect on tuning than the change in scale length.
There's a bit more going on here than you might suspect. Pythagoras would make an awesome dinner companion, and he might point you to some geometric issues you hadn't thought of. When we had dinner 20 years ago, he suggested that if the neck adjusts square to the string at rest, and not the fingerboard, then adjusting the neck height won't meaningfully change the length or tension of the string! Now that I think of it, Pythagoras wasn't able to make it, and it was Jim Ham who explained this (now obvious seeming) fact to me as a result of his work executing his brilliant adjustable/detachable neck design for his Splendid handmade upright basses. www.hamstringsmusic.com/ Funny how things we didn't understand seem "obvious" when they're explained by the genius who saw the light.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I fail to picture how one could adjust the neck (but not the fingerboard) square (perpendicular?) to the string unless maybe if with "at rest" you mean starging from the "neutral position". I can see how there will be a small range of adjustment where Jim's explanation is sufficiently exact. But I can think of only 1 mechanism where string length remains almost perfectly constant over any range of adjustment: one where the neck rotations around an appropriate transverse axis through the nut. I'm not going to ask if you accept the challenge - I no longer have a soul to sell ;)
Ken, do you think that upright jazz bass should be braced and have a bridge like an archtop since the operation is more like guitar than a bowed instrument? when i saw your drawing thats all i could think those and f holes on double bass for jazz dont help at all.
Good Inquiry! Maybe try some of these ideas on an old beater? I'd be curious to know what you find out. It does seem that you might be able to get a much bigger voice due to the giant size and massive long strings if the instrument was modified to be always used without a bow.
Reading my mind here! I have a few Lignum vises roughed out and stress relieving right now. I'll be interested in their tonal contribution, and promise to make a full report! Australian wood is tough to source here.
Hi Ken I guess I missed the part where you attach the bone part to the ebony of the bridge? I am going to hollow out my bridge on my Slide on the side. When I do I am curious as to what type of adhesive you use to attach the bone to the Ebony. Pat
Ken, there's always so much to chew on after I get through one of your videos. Quick direct question - what's your experience using Indian Rosewood for the bridge? With the scarcity of Braz and the whole ethical side of things, I'm trying to avoid it for the most part. I have a good stash of very old, air dried old growth IE Rosewood, and it's incredibly light and stiff, and it seems to have worked well as a Wedge style bridge for being pretty lightweight. Thanks again for sharing that story about the wedge bridge, it's a great one for the history books. How old would you have been when you conceived of that? Cheers.
I must admit I never fell in love with any of the rosewoods, and haven't used them very often, so I have little to say about them. I know lots of good builders who have used lots of rosewood(s), and I have no quarrel with that, but the material never seemed just right for my work. It seems like a really heavy grass to me, but "incredibly light and stiff" will get any builder's attention, so why not? I'd say give it a try, there's no harm in auditioning a promising material for this noble job. One great thing about the Archtop is the non-glued bridge, so it's easy to assess what a material can do in this crucial part. Violin makers are in the habit of dropping their bridge blanks on the bench to get a feel for the tonal response, and help them choose the most promising piece for the job. Yeah, the dumb "wedge" bridge. I was a 24 year old brat in 1977 when I came up with the "chopstick" action regulator idea, natch, we were eating lunch! You know what they say about a 25 year old man's frontal lobe, don't you? I apologize.
Honestly, very. Just the cost of doing what I like to do, building the best guitar I can conceive of. Not simple, not quick, not easy, not perfect, but, I like to think, exceptional.
Hi! Would you say that now that you have achieved a successful shape for your bridges, the material is still important? Or it doesn't matter that much considering their ratter complex/stiff geometry?
Material always seems to be important, though I have found that the differences between bridge materials seem like they're less that I might have expected, assuming a hard and tough material. I can feel how the bridge is changing by flexing and twisting it in my hands while I'm thinning it from the bottom surface. Ever a really hard material like ebony gets around to feeling "gooey" if you get it thin enough.
Hello, I just want to ask you if there is a reason for you to use only full base bridges. Thanks a lot for answer, and congrats for these gorgeous guitars! It is really incredible stuff
As I explain in the bridge intro segment, the main move of the archtop bridge is towards and away from the nut, in response to the shortening and lengthening of a plucked vibrating string. The two foot bridge design is uniquely well suited to a bowed string, as it's primarily driven across, rather then along the length of the string. It's not that two feet are wrong, but as I understand it, there's no benefit, and possibly a missed opportunity to best energize the top.
00:17:40 Question: (1) does he leave aditonell material in the middle on the bridge base or (2) does he remove material from the middle to increase the tension on the top of the guitar?
Perhaps I've failed to show this correctly, but there is no "material in the middle on the bridge base" to be considered, as it's just not there. In my understanding, the only parameter of the bridge that has an effect on the down-bearing force applied by the bridge to the top, (which I believe is what you refer to here as "tension") is height. Good questions, all the same, the bridge is an important member of the energy path within the guitar, and begs to be fully understood. Maybe in 100 years, we'll start to catch up to the violin makers?
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 sry, english is not my first language: I accidentally recoverd the "one piece bridge" - when I lowered a new bridge saddle (which was far too high) so it had full contact with the 2-foot-bridge base. That was a dramatically increase in tone and "response". So I'm actually hollowing a one-foot-bridge-base. My question is: if the bridge-base fits the top - should I take out little material in the middle of the bridge base?
@@didifischervideo OK,OK, thanks, I think I know what you're asking now. Really good question. Yes, I think this is wise, and it's what I like to do. I think it's not good when the bridge touches harder in the middle, and it can cause funny noises if the ends aren't touching the top firmly. I think we agree that it's much better to make sure that the ends of the bridge make firm contact with the top by removing a small amount of wood from the center after you get it to fit correctly. This is a subtlety, and should be a very slight adjustment. The idea is that the stiffness of the bridge will overcome the cross-grain stiffness of the top, and deform it as it is loaded by the strings, insuring that it will touch firmly from end to end. I hope this makes sense, it's important so that the bridge ends can help to drive the top.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Thanks, last question, as I removed the wheels from the bridge and cannot change the truss rod (because it's an guitar from 1954): does the neck in summer make a bow? And is more straight in winter? Or otherwise? Or is just the top moving?
Interesting question! Does one exist? Depends on your sense of humor! An original Tele bridge, for example, can be made to "adjust" all these ways with judicious use of files. It kind of depends on what you'd like to use it for, and what you'd like it to look like, but usually, files and careful work will enable nearly any metal electric guitar bridge with individually height adjustable saddles to work acceptably, in my experience. What I did was get disgusted with the junky bridges that came on otherwise good guitars, and just designed and made my own. It's been awhile since I paid any attention to this problem, so I don't really know what's available now, but I bet you have some aftermarket options.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Thanks much for the the response,.. I am drawing /designing/building a guitar in a CAD program. I can see i am going to need a custom bridge. I can draw one,, but getting it to a physical one will be a challenge.,, Unless there is a company/shop that provides that service of building to spec bridges. Thank much again.
Mr Ken Parker you are amazing. It is really a shame that out of situation, time and resources, you sold the electric part to Wash... But that's a different story. I was wondering wether you are aware of an acoustic guitar brand named "Boulder Creek". They have a fascinating take on a suspended bracing system. I was wondering what is your take on it.
@@vassosserghiousr5488 That’s Interesting what Boulder Creek came up with. It’s odd they went with such a symmetrical parallel design. It makes me wonder as there’s not much symmetrical about what makes a wooden guitar top, saddle and strings all make pleasing sound as a unit. I dunno Their explanation of their theory with the drum head with a duct tape X applied didn’t seem appropriate for the context of a wooden guitar. It reminded me of how old Lutes and Baroque period ‘guitars’ used ladder bracing similar to how one would brace a wall with a 2x4. Braces going 90° across the grain of the wood top like that I thought was what made those first guitars frankly suck at projecting. They sound lifeless and a bit lackluster especially compared to the newly developed piano. Sure there’s some people into the Harpsichord sound but ya know what I’m sayin’ Some argue if it weren’t for the Development of the Torres guitar with his application of a fan bracing pattern, the guitar may have been left in the past. Here’s a link that has a quick overview about the roots of guitar bracing pedagogy. www.thisisclassicalguitar.com/bracing-styles-for-classical-guitars/ I’m curious what those Boulder Creek guitars play and sound like in person. I also want to try one a Relish guitar archtop with that aluminum inner structure thing they’ve developed. But I really want to straight up own a Parker archtop more than anything else.
Please explain what you mean! What purpose, and what effect? I meant no disrespect, and was referring to the short-lived Gibson bridge design on my 1918 Gibson L-3.
