I have several, nice quality, mahogany cigar box "spacers" that are 3/4" and 5/8" square and up to 7" in length. If you are using them for parts, what do you use them for? I need a mahogany bridge for a vintage soprano uke I'm re-doing. If I do a "proper" glue job, can I join two pieces to get the proper width for a bridge that will be about 1/3" in thickness or so? It's not really a high end instrument and will use nylon uke strings.
They are a little too nice to be using as braces, thus I'm wondering if and how you use them.
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I just cut the up and use them as corner blocks.
I often cut similar woods into long, curved strips and glue them to lovely yet shallow boxes as a sort of 'depth extension', then pare down to match the box.
I've also done similar to wooden tennis racquets in order to fashion sound chambers-layers of strips glued directly to the hoop until i've got a round 'box' roughly 2.5 to 3 inches deep, then file and sand a smooth 'bowl' out of it.
But mahogany for bridges or nuts? Never tried it, though i've used everything from bone to brass to oak to heated bamboo (try cutting bamboo chopsticks to fit your strings and then 'cook' it gently-it gets hard enough to hold Marten mid-weight banjo strings without wear!). It won't hurt anything to make your bridges and/or nuts out of mahogany though...it might be fun to make the same design in Oak, Maple with Bone saddle, Rosewood with brass threaded rod etc etc etc, and just try each one in action until you get exactly the sound you want...
Thanks. I can smell no cedar aroma. I am trying to make a bridge that is close to the original on the Regal-made Chicago uke I am fixing up. Closest I could find is Gitty's koa bridge. I am also installing an ebony saddle and nut (so says the Chinese maker - just went and did a "scratch test" and it looks pretty hard, just might be ebony but could be dyed rosewood as well. Either would work well )
If that Regal is vintage or even just nice, you might want a nice hardwood bridge.
Bunch of variations on Ebay. More on Amazon.
Stewmac has these basic bridges and these deluxe bridges.
Uke world sells these rosewood bridges.
Dont want to discourage your use of the wood you have, but I fear if its like what I have seen, it may be soft for the application.
And for what its worth, not all cedar is overly aromatic. Oddly, much of mine smells like cigar tobacco.....
Let us know whatever route you choose. Love a good uke project. (Fool that I am, I have a neck reset on a 50's soprano on my workbench now!)
Thanks. Seen all of those. The original has a simple, rectangular, mahogany bridge that looks a lot like the koa one Gitty sells (I can always get that one if I don't want to make one)
After your remark, I stuck a blade into it and it's harder than it looks....good news. I'll keep you posted.
I get a lot that are very pretty clear wood, but soft..... I have thought they were clear cedar, but I could be wrong.
Might work for a bridge with some form of hard insert. I have built a few using a fret, some with Tusq.
If the wood isnt too soft, I dont see why glueing some together for a Uke bridge would be worth a try. But then, you can buy a finished rosewood or equiv. premade for a couple bucks too, so its kind of up to you. If you have time and prefer DYI, go for it! The experimenting is a big part of the fun.