grooves on wood bridge

[Ceres ll]

Hi,
I have an upright console, and have very little grooves on the bridge
following the notches in the direction of the tuning pins. I think that
it can diminish the sustain time of the strings.
How make disappear these grooves? Fill with epoxy? Sand it?
other?

Thanks.

[Barrie Heaton]

Hi,
I have an upright console, and have very little grooves on the bridge
following the notches in the direction of the tuning pins. I think that
it can diminish the sustain time of the strings.
How make disappear these grooves? Fill with epoxy? Sand it?
other?

Thanks.

Are we taking about the Vbar or the sound board bridge

Barrie

[Ceres ll]

The soundboard bridge; the woodbridge on wich there are
notches

[Colin Nicholson]

For the soundboard bridge, personally, I would leave the grooves as they are, and just clean up the bridge pins & contact areas. Dont use any glues/epoxy resin etc. I would also apply some liquid graphite (dry lubricant) if the contact areas are worn, showing bare wood. This will ensure a smoother tuning. However if the sustaining power is poor, this could be a lack of good down-bearing - nothing to do with those grooves. You may need a down-bearing gauge to measure it, and depending on the level of work you are doing, possibly recap the bridge.

Barrie may have some other suggestions.

[Barrie Heaton]

The soundboard bridge; the woodbridge on wich there are
notches

As Colin as said leave them they are normal, If you have removed all the strings you will not be able to test the DB with tension on - if the string are still on and you don't have a DB gauge you can use a long straight edge on the back of the soundboard in the middle, see if you can get a strip of paper to pass under the straight edge in the middle if you can then you have some DB

As its just an upright its not worth putting in a new soundboard, the other way is to remove the soundboard then remove the belly bars put the sound board in compression and re-glue the belly bars, they do this a lot Europe, in the US they tend to change the board, in the UK we wait for 5th of November for uprights.

the other potability for lack of sustain is poor side draft you may have lose bridge pins - on there other hand the hammers may be past it or a combination of them all

Barrie