Negative bearing

[Ron Nossaman]

>Ron:
>
>I've heard some (David Hughes, for example) say that he aims for zero
>bearing on the bass bridge and very minimal at bottom of the tenor bridge
>and this seems to generate the best tone at that end.  Any comments?  Does
>the bearing on the back of bass bridge give you any concerns re compromising
>the glue joint on the cantilever?  At what point (number of degrees) would
>you be concerned?
>
>David Love

I don't like cantilevers at all, because they're hard on the soundboard. I
like some bearing, but I probably load them lighter than some folks, though
possibly heavier than David. In an older board, I'll use under 0.3° with a
cantilever bridge in the bass, about the same or a bit more in the low to
mid tenor, graduating up to something a little over 1° in the treble. With
a new board, I hope to have eliminated the bass cantilever altogether, and
will load it somewhere between 0.3° and 0.5° in the bass and tenor, up to
about 1.5° in the treble. 

You'll get a bunch of different opinions on this, most all of them working
well enough to be termed successful. There are about a jillion variables,
and you have to work with what is in front of you. It's mostly a crap
shoot, but we have enough margin to get away with more than we probably
deserve. If you stay away from the very light, and very heavy loadings,
you're in the ball park of getting what the old soundboard has to give you
without unnecessarily abusing it.

Ron N