Building an Adjustable Bridge

by Thomas C. DeVeau

Originally published in American Lutherie #81, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015



In my part-time business of making citterns and one-of-a-kind instruments, I find that the adjustable bridges in most catalogs don’t meet my specifications, so I make my own. Now I control the size, shape, and string spacing, and can use woods that match the woods that I use in my instruments. The following describes how I make the bridge design I came up with. For this bridge I use thumbwheel-and-post sets obtained from Stewart-MacDonald, part #3960, and their fretwire, part #148.

Start with a piece of 3/4˝-thick stock. Place the outside strings on the instrument and measure the space between them at the bridge position (Photo 1). Add 2˝ and cut a block to this length. Find the center of this length and extend centerlines around the block. On each side of the centerline, mark half the outside string width to establish the outside string positions. Draw lines 1/4˝ outside these string-position marks to establish the positions of the thumbwheel posts.