Thread: Wedge Materials??

Hey folks. I had a question regarding wedge materials.

I'm making my first attempt at scales, and I bought a bunch of woods for it...Walnut, Mahogany and Basswood. I was going to make my first set out of basswood entirely, but after some research it doesn't seem like a good idea. So I was going to use the basswood as a wedge for color contrast between the mahogany pieces. Will it be too soft for that?

I also have some bone blanks for making saddles in acoustic guitars that are perfectly sized for a wedge. Would a bone wedge be too hard for wooden scales? For some reason I picture bone being used with harder and stiffer materials like horn. Or is all of that inconsequential?

Originally Posted by U2Bono269

Hey folks. I had a question regarding wedge materials.

I'm making my first attempt at scales, and I bought a bunch of woods for it...Walnut, Mahogany and Basswood. I was going to make my first set out of basswood entirely, but after some research it doesn't seem like a good idea. So I was going to use the basswood as a wedge for color contrast between the mahogany pieces. Will it be too soft for that?

I also have some bone blanks for making saddles in acoustic guitars that are perfectly sized for a wedge. Would a bone wedge be too hard for wooden scales? For some reason I picture bone being used with harder and stiffer materials like horn. Or is all of that inconsequential?

I have seen plenty of razors with wood scales that have lead, bone, other contrasting wood wedges, I have used bone, aluminium and Corian on sets of ebony, and walnut scales, and ebony / walnut on maple scales.
I tend to go for what will contrast nicely and is hard enough to do the job, you don't want to use a material that will deform or squash down when pinning. I would have no problem with using bone on wood scales.

PS I am guessing that like me, you may make or repair guitars, I rarely use bone now, only by customer request, I find Corian to be easier to work and the ivory coloured type is perfect for nuts, and saddles.

In that case I'll probably skip the basswood altogether and go right for bone. I don't know if the basswood is too soft for pinning but I don't want to find out. I picked it out because I liked the color contrast to the mahogany but bone will do fine.

I've never used Corian for guitars personally, but I do have a Martin that has a Corian nut and it's pretty nice. I do like bone for saddles the best, but micarta is a pretty good material too. I don't make guitars...fixing up old guitars was a hobby of mine until the baby was born. My dream is to finally move into a house that has the space for a work area so I can go back to messing around with guitars again. I always enjoyed it.

Wedge material , as scales, mostly preference. Bone should be fine with the wood.

Back to preference, I like natural wedge, with natural scales. So I would like bone wedge with wood or horn scales. Corian would work, but for me, I would use that for a wedge with something like g10. That's me though.

Avoid wet sanding prior final fit of bone wedge, due to will swell slightly then. Possible frustration when bone wedge then shrinks are dries to normal moisture level.