First, I carved the bridge template and rough-cut the tailpiece yesterday. The bridge template took longer than I thought it would, since I was carving a 1x2 maple block down to a piece that's about 3/8" thick, and 1-3/8" tall. Lots of sawdust everywhere, as you might expect.
The tailpiece was rough-carved from a 2x2 piece of red oak. I chose red oak because I couldn't put my hands on a piece of maple of the same size. Again, lots of sawdust, and lots of noise. The holes for the strings didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, note the angle of the lower string, as it passes through the bridge, and then tilts up to the bridge. During finish-carving, I want to even that out. I'll probably turn the hole into a slot to relieve that pressure. That's the kind of pressure that snaps a string off, usually in the middle of a performance or recording session.
I want to take a moment here to thank, profusely, my better half, the inestimable Mrs. Jimbug, for putting up with all the sawdust, and especially the noise. Imagine having a dentist's drill in your mouth, and a mosquito buzzing in your ear. Off and on, for a month. Picture that, and you have the sound of a Dremel tool carving maple, mahogany and rosewood.
Still, I am pleased with the results so far. I strung it up, and did the first play-test.
The objective of this first test was to find out how the tailpiece and the neck would react to the stresses of 5 strings under tension. The neck held up beautifully, and is straight as an arrow (thanks to that steel truss rod). The tailpiece lifted slightly under the pressure, but I'm going to add two screws to the three that are currently holding it down.
As you can see from the picture above, the action is still way too high to play-test the fingerboard. I'm planning to carve out a trench for the bridge to help with this. This trench will do two things, first, provide some stability for the bridge, and second, lower the action to play-test the fingerboard (and generally play the instrument, now that I think of it). The trench will also hold the adjustment system that I'm planning to cobble together, er, use. You didn't think I'd go all this way and not have an adjustable bridge, did you?
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