The work is slow but steady, as always. I had a spot of trouble when I fractured my kneecap and lost some momentum, but some stuff I’ve managed to do.
Grabbing a chunk of mesquite, I hogged off a piece for the bridge.
After making two sides parallel I planed a face flat. Mesquite is quite tough so some light oil on the sole of the plane really helps.
And as I have on a few bridges recently, I cut the saddle slot with a handsaw rather than my small table saw. Less setup, less noise.
I saw two cuts and clean out the waste with a narrow chisel, it’s ground as a mortise chisel with flat sides.
After a wee bit of fiddling the bone saddle slides in. You want to cut the slot before final shaping of the bridge, it’s much easier to make the edges parallel to the slot than making the slot parallel to the edges. If you work with hand tools.
Ta-daa..!
Laying out, masking, marking, drilling, clamping. (Of course after making sure the bottom matches the radiused soundboard.)
I secured it with a guitar string I had on the bench, just to stop it sliding around in the glue.
And clamping. I get the wedges out to control the pressure, checking all edges for squeeze out. It’s not perfectly straight forward, clamping something with as many angles and facets as this.
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