Pin Bridge vs Tie Bridge

I'm sure there are more pros and cons, but here are a couple things I can think of that favor, or why I favor, the pin bridge:

Easier string changes (not that a tie bridge or knot bridge is hard)
Places more tension on the sound board (better sound board vibration? )
Less apt to cause a bridge failure (bridge joint failure where glued to sound board)
Looks Cool! :)

Jim
 
I'm sure there are more pros and cons, but here are a couple things I can think of that favor, or why I favor, the pin bridge:

Easier string changes (not that a tie bridge or knot bridge is hard)
Places more tension on the sound board (better sound board vibration? )
Less apt to cause a bridge failure (bridge joint failure where glued to sound board)
Looks Cool! :)

Jim

Thanks. Sounds good to me. I have one with pins, and I'll probably get another.

I recently read an article explaining that the glued-on bridge is a safety feature. If the uke is dropped or banged, the bridge can pop off, rather than having a more important part get broken by the spring tension.
 
Well I know it's just my technique (or lack of...) but I find that my forearm rubs on the knots of a tie bridge, which can get pretty irritating. So I would always go for a pin bridge (if available) or if not then a string through bridge. A pin bridge not only makes changing strings easier, but it also makes it a snap to reuse them if you are interested in trying out several types of strings.
 
I dont have any ukes with a pin bridge, only slotted and tie-bridges.

For either, and since I am always changing and testing strings, all my strings have knots at the ends, and for a tie-bridge, I do NOT tie them on, but rather put a bead on the end, which goes betw the knot and the string hole in the bridge and just pull the string straight thru, and they work just fine and easy to remove and/or reinstall later.

Also looks neater to me (going thru with the bead and knot), as well as saving the wood of the tie-block from getting chewed up from indentations caused by the pressure/tension of the string when wrapped around the tie-block.

I do the same thing with beads on my classical guitars. Steel string acoustics all usually have pin bridges, and I have no issue with them.
 
I'm sure there are more pros and cons, but here are a couple things I can think of that favor, or why I favor, the pin bridge:

Easier string changes (not that a tie bridge or knot bridge is hard)
Places more tension on the sound board (better sound board vibration? )
Less apt to cause a bridge failure (bridge joint failure where glued to sound board)
Looks Cool! :)

Jim

:agree: What he said, especially easy string changes! And amazing looks...I got some rosewood buttons with abalone inserts.
button.jpg
 
I dont have any ukes with a pin bridge, only slotted and tie-bridges.

For either, and since I am always changing and testing strings, all my strings have knots at the ends, and for a tie-bridge, I do NOT tie them on, but rather put a bead on the end, which goes betw the knot and the string hole in the bridge and just pull the string straight thru, and they work just fine and easy to remove and/or reinstall later.

Also looks neater to me (going thru with the bead and knot), as well as saving the wood of the tie-block from getting chewed up from indentations caused by the pressure/tension of the string when wrapped around the tie-block.

I do the same thing with beads on my classical guitars. Steel string acoustics all usually have pin bridges, and I have no issue with them.

Are you using metal beads? glass? plastic? I'm curious to try this as I have a trillion beads to chose from.
 
Are you using metal beads? glass? plastic? I'm curious to try this as I have a trillion beads to chose from.

Yes! I'm interested in hearing more about this too, Booli. :)
 
Are you using metal beads? glass? plastic? I'm curious to try this as I have a trillion beads to chose from.

Yes! I'm interested in hearing more about this too, Booli. :)

I bought all kinds of shapes and sizes of a shiny-grey hematite-looking beads that they had at Michaels. I think they are glass or ceramic. Some are 3mm spheres, some 2mm spheres and others are 1.5mm thick and 3mm square flat beads, and others yet are flattish elliptical and 3mm or 5mm diameter and a few are 3mm cubes. All the same color.

Some have smaller holes thru than others. I've used different beads from this collection for everything from 0.0185" fluoro (Worth CL "A" string) up to 0.065" sliver-plated copper wound over nylon classical guitar strings to give you the range of the hole sizes.

I will try to put up some photos, but just taking the pictures would be a kind of big project and may not get to the photos for a couple of days....
 
I bought all kinds of shapes and sizes of a shiny-grey hematite-looking beads that they had at Michaels. I think they are glass or ceramic. Some are 3mm spheres, some 2mm spheres and others are 1.5mm thick and 3mm square flat beads, and others yet are flattish elliptical and 3mm or 5mm diameter and a few are 3mm cubes. All the same color.

Some have smaller holes thru than others. I've used different beads from this collection for everything from 0.0185" fluoro (Worth CL "A" string) up to 0.065" sliver-plated copper wound over nylon classical guitar strings to give you the range of the hole sizes.

I will try to put up some photos, but just taking the pictures would be a kind of big project and may not get to the photos for a couple of days....

Thanks so much for this info, Booli! :)
 
Thanks so much for this info, Booli! :)

No problem.

I forgot to mention that my Cordoba Mini has a pin-bridge, and for that I've used the smaller 1.5mm (I think?) beads to make them more like typical ball-end strings. The Mini originally came with the normal brass barrels (like that would be inside the twisted ends of an electric guitar string) on the strings that were already installed, but I lost 1-2 of them on the first string change, and my slight OCD would not let me have some strings with the barrels and others with beads, so I had to change all of them to the beads, LOL.

It's kind of funny to me because nobody would ever see them or know they were there, but it would be nagging at me and keep me up at night. Funny how stress and chaos has given me the gift of slight OCD about certain things, in needing to have SOME feeling of control in my life, and this instance of having all the string ends at the bridge be all matchy-matchy makes me feel better.

Sure I could use ball-end classical guitar strings, which I've seen from Fender, Martin, D'Addario and La Bella, and a few others but none of the sets are the gauges and materials I'd want to use for Terz tuning on a 21" scale, and they only offer those same gauges as singles for replacements to the sets, so use other strings (Thomastik CF128), and I knot the strings and put the beads on for good measure.

However the Thomastik CF-45 'E' string does not like being in a tight overhand knot, and I found that a loose figure-eight knot does not crease/kink the chrome over-wrap and the use of a wide bead (that still fits into the pin-hole on the bridge of the Mini) acts as a nice stopper without forcing the knot to be cinched down, which breaks the over-wrap and will compromise the integrity of the string, and it will fail and pull through - happened to me one time with other knots that were not figure-eight knots.
 
No problem.

I forgot to mention that my Cordoba Mini has a pin-bridge, and for that I've used the smaller 1.5mm (I think?) beads to make them more like typical ball-end strings. The Mini originally came with the normal brass barrels (like that would be inside the twisted ends of an electric guitar string) on the strings that were already installed, but I lost 1-2 of them on the first string change, and my slight OCD would not let me have some strings with the barrels and others with beads, so I had to change all of them to the beads, LOL.

It's kind of funny to me because nobody would ever see them or know they were there, but it would be nagging at me and keep me up at night. Funny how stress and chaos has given me the gift of slight OCD about certain things, in needing to have SOME feeling of control in my life, and this instance of having all the string ends at the bridge be all matchy-matchy makes me feel better.

I'm with you, Booli. Great minds think alike. I'm exactly the same way. :)
 
I recently read an article explaining that the glued-on bridge is a safety feature. If the uke is dropped or banged, the bridge can pop off, rather than having a more important part get broken by the spring tension.
Jerry, would you mind sharing where you saw this? I'm really curious where it appeared and who wrote it. Thanks!
 
I bought all kinds of shapes and sizes of a shiny-grey hematite-looking beads that they had at Michaels. I think they are glass or ceramic. Some are 3mm spheres, some 2mm spheres and others are 1.5mm thick and 3mm square flat beads, and others yet are flattish elliptical and 3mm or 5mm diameter and a few are 3mm cubes. All the same color.

Some have smaller holes thru than others. I've used different beads from this collection for everything from 0.0185" fluoro (Worth CL "A" string) up to 0.065" sliver-plated copper wound over nylon classical guitar strings to give you the range of the hole sizes.

I will try to put up some photos, but just taking the pictures would be a kind of big project and may not get to the photos for a couple of days....

Thanks! I have several sizes of the hematite beads...if i can just find them.
 
Back on topic

Having had had strings, especially G & A strings pop out of a slotted bridge, I now tie little beads into all my strings except C and low G on slotted bridge ukes. So far, I've tied my strings on with tie bridge ukes but I find it a faff to do so next time I'm going with beads on the end of the strings for tie bridge ukes. I don't have any pin or through bridge ukes.
 
Try GOOGLING "Bridge beads ukulele". Lots of stuff. I use them on my through-bridge MB. Works better than the knots I was using and spreads the pressure.
 
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