Mandolin Bridge for Neapolitan or Portogese Mandolin

thingiverse

This is a bridge for a neapolitan or portogese mandolin. My older mandolin developed too much distance between the strings and the higher frets (~5 mm) due to drying/ageing of the body, which made it harder to play. So I needed to reduce the bridge height, which was 10 mm at first - and I had no clue how much. To try out the suitable height I printed some versions of this 3d model with different z heights in PLA with 0.2 mm quality. In my case it turned out to be z = 7 mm at best for a comfortable string/fret distance. The printed bridge might also serve as an emergency replacement when you have no other wood bridge at hand. But the PLA material filters and blocks a lot of good sound charactristics, therefore the mandolin sounded somehow pale and dampened with it. I finally grinded off my old wood bridge from 10 to 7 mm. If you have a similar issue, this model might serve you as a good help as well!