Maple and Ebony Banjo Bridge Blanks

Today, I cut up some maple and ebony for banjo bridge blanks for my banjo project. This is probably enough to last me quite a while but I already had the hard maple and ebony picked out with the proper grain orientation.

The maple needs to be quarter sawn as it sits on the banjo head so I pick out flatsawn boards that are cut perpendicular to the grain. The hard maple was cut into 3-1/2″ blocks then bandsawed into 1/4″ wide strips.

The ebony was sliced into 5/64″ slices then cut into about 3/8″ wide strips. I would normally have cut into 1/4″ wide but the ebony pen blanks that I used were 3/4″ x 3/4″ x 5″.

A bench hook / shooting board and a Lie Nielsen plane is used to smooth the surfaces to be glued.

I then glued up a few to get ready to be shaped then CNC cut into finished bridges. I’ll post that process when I get it done.