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Naimish Bridges

#61
Khronic said:
Ouch! As the anti-capitalist from Detroit old Hank is a sore spot for me. Why aren't the wealthy held accountable?
I'm going to have to use the opposite approach than that of Mr. Ford. He started at the bottom and worked his way up. Everyone could afford to buy a Ford.
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I don't normally defend Ford, as he was a personal friend of Hitler (no joke at all). But his method was to take an idea that was normally prohibitively expensive and try to find ways to streamline production in order to cut costs. That method is still the core of almost every successful business- the only exceptions being companies that have luckily developed "legendary" reputations over the years, such that efficiency and cost are not as relevant. Rickenbacker is one such example. I suppose Butler is too- if he actually sells enough of his custom units to not take a loss on them. Even Zvex, whose pedals command ridiculously high prices due to the brand name reputation, has had to (or at least chosen to) put out a higher-volume factory production model line alongside his boutique models.

IOW if you have that reputation already, and a reliable flow of people who will "do anything" to have your brand name on their gear, then you can call the shots. For anyone else though, the consumer market calls the shots, and the most proven way to get to them is by improving efficiency of production and delivery.

So, thinking of Butler, and Skjold... are there any other established names in boutique audio gear with whom you could partner? Where they give you a platform for sales, and access to their machine shops, in exchange for shared profit? Think small-scale yet high-end manufacturers in a similar vein to yourself, but where they may have the resources in-house to cut your production costs.
 
#65
What on Earth do you mean "read more type less"? I am happy to cite my source, that's a reasonable request. Give me a couple of minutes on Google. It won't take long because my statement was based on well-established and documented fact.

"Read more type less" implies something I don't think you'd be wise to imply.
 
#67
mrtn400 said:
Gee, those look nice.

I really wish I had the money for one and some new pickups. :atoz:
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Hey mrtn400,

Thanks for the compliment, and for the good laugh.:D I know just how you feel. "...wish I had the money for one and some new pickups.", and a different pick guard, and some new control knobs, and some hipshot ultra-lites, and....:bawl:

Rick
 
#69
bongomania said:
I don't normally defend Ford, as he was a personal friend of Hitler (no joke at all). But his method was to take an idea that was normally prohibitively expensive and try to find ways to streamline production in order to cut costs. That method is still the core of almost every successful business- the only exceptions being companies that have luckily developed "legendary" reputations over the years, such that efficiency and cost are not as relevant. Rickenbacker is one such example. I suppose Butler is too- if he actually sells enough of his custom units to not take a loss on them. Even Zvex, whose pedals command ridiculously high prices due to the brand name reputation, has had to (or at least chosen to) put out a higher-volume factory production model line alongside his boutique models.

IOW if you have that reputation already, and a reliable flow of people who will "do anything" to have your brand name on their gear, then you can call the shots. For anyone else though, the consumer market calls the shots, and the most proven way to get to them is by improving efficiency of production and delivery.

So, thinking of Butler, and Skjold... are there any other established names in boutique audio gear with whom you could partner? Where they give you a platform for sales, and access to their machine shops, in exchange for shared profit? Think small-scale yet high-end manufacturers in a similar vein to yourself, but where they may have the resources in-house to cut your production costs.
Click to expand...
O.K. You and mikeyswood done?

I don't take that as defending Henry Ford. And I wasn't attacking him, just questioning. Not the man but the system that allows his kind to profit beyond all common sense and reason. He and his spawn made more money, by raping the earth to build machines that spew poison into the air, than any of them will ever need.

Now that the grandkids and great grandkids have run the company into the ground, due to nothing more than unbridled greed, they're more than happy to turn their backs..........????

Am I rambling?............... Sorry.

My blessing and my curse. I've never been like anyone else.

I've always been from; "....a race of men that don't fit in...." Jack London I think??? Probably why it was me who came up with this idea.

You've got great ideas and suggestions. It would appear that you and I see eye to eye on many of these ideas. You know I greatly appreciate your time and input on this whole bridge affair. Thanks.

Rick
 
#70
Robert W. Service????? How did I get Jack London from that?:hiding:

The Men that Don't Fit In
by: Robert W. Service

There's A race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far,
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.
 
#71
O.K. a quick update.

Minimum string height is 0.394". Maximum String height is 0.658". Intonation adjustment is 11/16" or 0.6875" overall.

The currently available string spacing options are:
_________________________________________18mm 0.710"
_________________________________________19mm 0.750"
_________________________________________20mm 0.787"
And what I call the Marcus Miller 5 string spacing at_____ 0.725"
I'm working on 16mm spacing for a special order and hope to have these available shortly. In this same vein, please do not hesitate to contact me regarding special designs. I'll do my best to accommodate everyone.

Colors will be Gold, Black, and Clear hard Anodized. The so called clear is considerably darker than the raw Aluminum but a very beautiful finish. And yes I'm looking into matching tuning keys and control knobs. That's going to take a while.

Now, on to the bridge without a base plate. Picture the saddle/anvil assemblies sitting flush on top of the guitar. Better yet sitting on bare wood in a shallow routed groove, or pocket, cut into the guitar just like a pick up route. The design goal of the Naimishbridge is increased surface contact area between the string saddle and the instrument. By eliminating the base plate, just like we eliminated the set screws as adjusters, we're enhancing the connection between string and instrument. We've eliminated a 0.094" thick piece of Aluminum that doesn't need to be there. We can now add this 0.094" to the half round boss on the bottom of the saddle piece yielding another 76% increase in the surface contact area.

This all makes very simple sense to me but I understand how it could be confusing to others. Again, any questions? Fire away.

Rick
 
#72
I like the "frame-type" idea. Not for the contact area reason, but for the aethetics.

Question: seeing how the string witness point is a cantilevered beam extending out past the pivot, which would have its own resonant frequency(ies): did you do any experimentation with the width and the thickness of the upper piece, which would change the mass and the stiffness and therefor the resonant frequency, to see if there is any significant affect on the tone?


If this were ever to enter large scale production, there could be significant savings realized by doing two custom extrusions for the two saddle parts, which would remove a ton of machining costs. The extrusions would be sticks with a profile looking like the side views of the two parts, which would then just be parted off into individual saddles, requiring machining from the top side only. The top piece would no longer need to have the nose roundover and the underside profile machined, and the base would no longer need the pivot hollow machined. And if you wanted to add a nose roundover to the base at either end, or to the top at the back, it would be "for free."
 
#73
I came in to this a few minutes too late! I was going to post something similar to PJ above, given that I was working on a similar resonance issue for an art music installation earlier today AND was going to suggest extruding the saddles. So much for contributing usefully!
 
#74
Angus said:
I was working on a similar resonance issue for an art music installation earlier today
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[tangent] Sounds like cool gig! Is there a website for it? [/tangent]

Angus, have you ever heard of doing a two-functional-parts extrusion? Either as two separate sticks, or as two parts "bridged," later to be broken apart and cleaned up? I'm thinking that for one thing, this naimishbridge application always needs an equal length of both parts; for another, the die enclosing circle for either one part or both together is small enough that it could be done with virtually any sized ram, in my experience. Although there could be small extruders that I never had contact with.
 
#75
pilotjones said:
I like the "frame-type" idea. Not for the contact area reason, but for the aesthetics.
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Oh yeah. The aesthetic aspect is something I neglected to mention. I think it would blow people away to see the wood peeking out from inside the frame and underneath the saddle/anvil assemblies.

pilotjones said:
Question: seeing how the string witness point is a cantilevered beam extending out past the pivot, which would have its own resonant frequency(ies): did you do any experimentation with the width and the thickness of the upper piece, which would change the mass and the stiffness and therefor the resonant frequency, to see if there is any significant affect on the tone?
Click to expand...
No I didn't do any experimenting. The original design was made to retro-fit a MIA Jazz Dlx. (i.e. I only had so much room to work with before I started hanging off the end of the Bass.) The width was determined by the original 0.750" Fender string spacing. (Which I like and am used to.) The thickness was determined by the Fender bridge design. I measured the 4 existing string heights, from top of body to bottom of string, and used the average as my set goal height. (i.e. When the top of the saddle piece is parallel to the top of the instrument.) Theoretically the middle of the string height adjustment. One of the changes to the original proto-type design was to shave off 1/16" from the front of the anvil piece. This was done at the request of, and with much assistance from, a customer looking for lower action on a pair of Tyler Basses. (Thank you, Pat.)

I'll go ahead and beat the dead horse here. Any change you make to an instrument, and or it's add on accessories, will create a corresponding change in the sound.

It's obvious from your post I didn't need to point this out to you.

pilotjones said:
If this were ever to enter large scale production, there could be significant savings realized by doing two custom extrusions for the two saddle parts, which would remove a ton of machining costs. The extrusions would be sticks with a profile looking like the side views of the two parts, which would then just be parted off into individual saddles, requiring machining from the top side only. The top piece would no longer need to have the nose roundover and the underside profile machined, and the base would no longer need the pivot hollow machined. And if you wanted to add a nose roundover to the base at either end, or to the top at the back, it would be "for free."
Click to expand...
I know. So far as I've been able to determine the numbers to make this economically feasible are in the high tens of thousands of units.

Those of you with the thin skin please stop reading right here. :hiding:



Those with a sense of humor please continue. :D



There is abso-f*&%$#g-lutely nothing any of you will be able to think of that I haven't tried in the past eight years. As a matter of fact I'm on my second go round with many of the suggestions and advice. Tomorrow will be the third time I go to the bank about a loan. etc. etc. Of course those of you still reading will understand I'm saying this to inspire you. Not to discourage you.

Keep it coming, you'll get your props. (See "Thank you, Pat" above)

And a big Thanks to you pilotjones, :hyper:
Rick
 
#77
You're welcome. At the risk of insulting you by suggesting things you've already considered: in an effort to remove the complex contouring of the "nub" on the underside of the top pice, how about two concave depressions in top and bottom, produced by a regular ball end mill, and a floating aluminum rod between them to pivot on? If that could be made to work given the string path, of which I'm not sure. Maybe the "axle" would need to be turned down to a barbell shape.

Have you ever priced a custom contoured diamond grinding wheel for the underside contour? I don't know what it's life would be on aluminum, but maybe a possibility.

Your position is a tough one. A few dozen can be made regardless of high costs, because of a limited number of customers who aren't particularly cost-sensitive. But high quantities necessitate low prices, and the manufacturing costs don't scale that way until you have a really high quantity. Right now I'm being asked to automate assembly of parts in the 100,000 units per year range - but assembly automation doesn't pay off until you get closer to a million per year.

If this were picked up with a commitment by even a small-medium-ish manufacturer - like the way Spector makes his own unique bridges, or Ken Smith his own (now-)conventional ones - it could become feasible. It would be great if Ibanez picked your bridge for a boutique line, you could license the patent and have them manufacture them, with an agreement to sell to you at a guaranteed price.
 
#78
Hey pilotjones,

No problem here. There is nothing you or anyone else can say that will insult me.

I tried to explain in a previous post; "There is abso-f*&%$#g-lutely nothing any of you will be able to think of that I haven't tried in the past eight years." I guess I didn't make myself clear. :D

It's difficult to see in the side view of the saddle/anvil assembly but there's just not enough meat on the underside of the saddle piece to make a connection as solid as the way I do it. The saddle piece rides too high above the anvil piece to make this work.

The extrusion thing will happen eventually if they can hold the close tolerances this design requires. It's my understanding that this is not a problem.

Shame on you. You said the S word. :rollno::rollno: Spector never returned the bridge I sent him. (Like he agreed to do before I sent it) That's too bad. It's the last one he'll ever see unless it's on someone else's Bass.

If you were me, you wouldn't fret so much. (Get it? Fret so much? It's a Bassist joke.) This is simple. I just make it happen. You know, sheer force of will. Create your own reality. All that new agey catch phrasey crap. Let me highjack my own post for a second.

Everything is exactly as it should be.

No worries jonesy. Thanks again for your input.
Rick
 
#80
Khronic said:
I know. So far as I've been able to determine the numbers to make this economically feasible are in the high tens of thousands of units.
Click to expand...

Errr, are you sure about that? I've had parts extruded for very low cost in the past- all I had to do was make the die to the specifications that fit their machine and they didn't charge much at all. Given that these pieces are on the scale of extruded bar and pipe, etc, it shouldn't be something that should break the bank, especially if you have CNC capability to make the necessary dies. There still have to be machine work to finish them, but it should still be miles cheaper. Have you talked to very much companies about it? There are a number of extrusion and injection molding companies who specialize in small size and small unit scale projects.

I had one quote me only about $10 a part to make injection-molded pickup shells assuming I designed everything (them designing it adds a LOT of cost). I think the minimum there was like 30-40. Not bad. There's definitely someone out there for you!

There is abso-f*&%$#g-lutely nothing any of you will be able to think of that I haven't tried in the past eight years.Of course those of you still reading will understand I'm saying this to inspire you. Not to discourage you.
Click to expand...

Why is this inspiring? You're telling us you know everything we might ever say and that we are, for all intents and purposes, wasting your time and ours, but to continue anyway. What?

It's difficult to see in the side view of the saddle/anvil assembly but there's just not enough meat on the underside of the saddle piece to make a connection as solid as the way I do it. The saddle piece rides too high above the anvil piece to make this work.
Click to expand...

Could you elaborate a little bit on this explanation? Not that you need to change the design of your bridge, but pilotjones' point is a valid one and I'm not sure how your explanation responds to it exactly.

The extrusion thing will happen eventually if they can hold the close tolerances this design requires. It's my understanding that this is not a problem.
Click to expand...

That part at least shouldn't be a problem! Extrusion can be extremely precise with a good die. I'd worry more about the coatings given your desire to ensure a perfect contact patch between the anvil and base.

Pilotjones, can't explain more about installation here, but I've helped do a few. I should explain more in a PM sometime- it's just for fun at the university.

The two part extrusion, though, is probably how the production people would prefer to do it, too. IME, the preferred way is just like die casting or injection molding- if you can make multiple pieces with a narrow bridge and without too much waste in the sprue, then they'll always do it that way even if it means you have to cut the pieces apart. For this application, there's no reason not to do it that way since all the small parts could be made with a single extrusion die.
 

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