Chcek out this buys patent and build bridge theory..for violins and violas

Intresting his bridge theory....scroll down vvvvv
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4389917/description.html

Why would i do that? It's not a ukulele!

Patents of this nature are simply a vanity exercise and I fail to understand why people bother to file.

I just was intrested of different bridge materials he was mentioning such as spotted maple or a plastic polycarbonate with 30% fiberglass to improve sound charatherisics....

Pete Howlett said:

Patents of this nature are simply a vanity exercise and I fail to understand why people bother to file.

Click to expand...

Plus violinists and violin makers are far too traditional and never bother with things like this.

Several comments:

Uke and flat top guitar bridges work in a completely different manner from bowed instrument bridges and so 95% this patent has utterly no relevance whatsoever to what we do and build. And plastic bridges as well as composite bridges (carbon fiber) have been done forever in the fretted instrument world. See Maccaferri, D.R. Young, Gibson J-45s and 50s from the 1960s, etc.

This patent is loaded with more words than sense or truth. The constant references to Stradivari are gratuitous and are clearly there just to impress patent examiners. I can't believe that this is the first plastic (with or without 30% fiberglass) violin bridge. A patent is nothing but a license to go defend it in court...a process that typically costs about $100,000.00 before you get before a judge. The patent itself probably cost at least 10K done through a patent attorney.

This is NOT to say that bridge construction and materials don't count; they do. But this patent has no application in our world.

One other comment:

Acoustic instruments do NOT amplify the string motion; they transform it through better mechanical impedance matching the vibrations of a string which can hardly move any air into the motion of plates which do move air much more efficiently. Strictly speaking, to amplify you have to harness an outside power source and modulate it to create a louder analog of the input signal. That is usually...as in 99.9% of the time...done with electricity, though there were some very interesting uses of compressed air amplification done both for phonograph records as well as musical instruments. With those, a pickup system modulated an air valve at the throat of a horn. You can Google the stuff...amazing.

Thanks Guys....it did seem there was alot of useless jargon in there...way too much as in anything good or bad, I always try to find someting good in anything....it's just me...

We're all better off looking for truth and logic in things than just for something nice. Nice covers passive aggressive behaviour among other not so nice things! There are a ton of ideas that on the surface look nice...they look plausible, and yet the underlying logic is flawed or woefully incomplete. The earliest statements and ideas of Prof. Kasha are a great example of that. The logic seemed impeccable, yet it all didn't work. Why? Because the basic assumptions of how guitar tops work were just plain wrong. Laser holographic interferometry proved that quite conclusively.

Which is to say, don't accept the first level of logic. Question it all the way down to the foundation...but understand each layer as it is revealed.

And that gets to the heart of the reinvent the wheel stuff that shows up here. A lot of that displays a lack of knowledge of the basics whether it's about wood or tools or techniques or finishes.

Thank you Rick for your insight and perspective, I am just a sponge seeking knowledge and have to turn over every stone so to speak..
we even can learn from others mistakes too...Oh BTW thank you for that other matter....in means so much to me....
here is this guys uke Rick..View attachment 52152View attachment 52153View attachment 52154View attachment 52155View attachment 52156[/QUOTE]