Sohmer Rolled bridge

[Clark]

Hi, all;

It was H&D what had the alternating agraffes - as Del already described,
Sohmer used agraffes for the speaking length termination, with a wooden
counter bearing formed by the rear of the bridge. I remember little
slips of maple between the ribs, or were they let into the ribs. Of
three, I've seen two with severe troubles I'd blame on this termination
system, as I mentioned, best (or worst) one broke some ribs in the
process - something had to go for it to roll, I guess. Maybe this is not
so typical (tiny sampling - didn't they use them for a while?), but I'd
venture the fairly constant distorting forces involved are much larger
than what single strings pulled up in pitch ever could produce.

> Excessive downbearing? Extremely high tension scaling? Or 
> inadequately stiff soundboard/rib scaling?

Didn't do anything 'cept patch the one with the ribs (well, somehow the
lid ended up in Maine...kludged the board and found the lid) but a
Sohmer upright we rescaled had very high overall tension.


I'm glad my own little Sohmer predates them, but I appreciate the slow
insights some of these more extreme inventions can offer dummies like
me, this a little like to cantilevered bass bridges - yes? ('hoy! that
wacky thing doesn't have one of those, neither)


Clark