Carbon Fiber Saddles
Eric
I was pleasantly surprised today at the performance of a new saddle material. As a matter of fact, I found it so superior to just about all other saddle options, that I’m thinking of phasing out nearly all other materials for saddles. (Except of course using an all-wood bridge with no saddle at all, which is still my standard choice.)
Now I must give a disclaimer: I still think that using an all-wood bridge with no saddle is the best overall option for use with a bowed psaltery with wound strings. However, I know there are some out there that prefer a psaltery with just a bit more sustain - and for this, I think carbon fiber is ideal. (Not to mention it is perfect for plain steel strings as well.
What’s so great about this material? It’s both light and strong. Best of all, it’s black so it blends in well.
I was looking at the specs of carbon fiber in general, and it came very close in density to Acetal, (aka Delrin), but it’s physically much more rigid. It’s so strong that I was actually able to use a hollow tube of carbon fiber for the saddle. Once you factor in that the inner half of the saddle is hollow, the overall mass of the saddle becomes incredibly light. I put it on my gram scale and had to do a double take to see if it could possibly be this light. (To put it into perspective, a carbon fiber saddle only weighs one tenth the weight of a brass saddle, and about one third the weight of an aluminum saddle.)
In short, carbon fiber gives excellent response, (due to its minimal overall mass), and also lets the strings of the psaltery glide over the surface of the saddle. The only downside is that it tends to resist the strings from making a groove, (the entire point of a saddle), so the sustain can still be a bit prolonged. So for those wanting to keep sustain down when using wound strings, I would still advise to use an all-wood bridge for your psaltery.
Posted on: Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 6:51 pm 
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