Guitar Bridge Plates

A bridge plate is a piece of wood that goes on the underside of the guitar top. It adds extra strength to the area where there is a lot of pressure from the tension of the strings. It also reinforces the bridge pins. Shown here are 2 sizes of bridge plates that C.F.Martin Company has used. The top one is the smaller maple bridge plate that was used up until the 60’s I think. I think Martin was having trouble with the tops giving away because of the heavy strings that were common in those days. Then they changed to the larger rosewood bridge plate shown at the bottom of this picture. These were apparently put in to help with the problem of tops distorting and bridges coming loose.

Here you can see the diference in size of these 2 bridge plates. I always felt the smaller maple bridge plate made for a better sound. Martin must agree because in the 80’s they went back to the smaller maple one.

Here is a bridge plate in an old Gibson Guitar. This guitar has the ladder style bracing system.

Here is a plywood bridge plate in a Gibson Union Made guitar from the 60’s or 70’s. It is almost 3/16 inch thick. The guitars with these bridge plates usually didn’t have too much sound.

Here is a bridge plate that I made slightly oversize for a repair job I did. The extra width was to compensate for a weakened top. Martin’s Herringbone blueprint lists the bridge plate at .100 inch thick.

Here is a picture showing 3 different bridge plates from Martin Guitars. The top one came out of a 1937 D-18 belonging to Bill Barnard. I took it out several years ago and fabricated a new one and put in it. The guy who built this old guitar in 1937 evidently didn’t have one of the Martin blueprints to go by.

Not only is it narrower than the standard maple bridge plate, it is considerably thinner.

It measured only about .084 inch thick. I’ve contended for a while that the old Martins were not all the same in sound. I feel like there were some of the craftsmen who did a better job than others. I don’t think these old guitars were as standardized as they are today.