Fultoncreek - Posted - 04/20/2026:  18:58:21

Some of you will remember that the late Arthur Hatfield used to make a uniquely compensated bridge that had not only an elongated third string but a shortened second string. Since Arthur's sad passing, has anyone else taken up making bridges to his spec's? Thanks for the help.

jbalch - Posted - 04/21/2026:  06:06:03

Arthur's compensated bridges were fantastic. I used them on several banjos. You can see one in the comparison below.

 

BobbyE - Posted - 04/21/2026:  07:32:25

If anyone is doing these it has showed up on the HO.

Bobby

Fultoncreek - Posted - 04/21/2026:  07:46:15

Yes, I did a BHO search before I posted my query but didn't see anything. Maybe I missed it. It's too good of a design to fall by the wayside.

Alex Z - Posted - 04/21/2026:  07:55:41

I'm recalling that the original Stelling bridges on the Crusader model had a similar design.

The Crusader did not use a compensated nut.

BobbyE - Posted - 04/21/2026:  09:09:48

>>If anyone is doing these it has showed up on the HO.<<

Apologize for the typo. Meant to say, "it hasn't shown up on the HO."

Bobby

Bart Veerman - Posted - 04/22/2026:  06:43:58

Arthur's compensated bridges looked beautiful and were well made. You don't see that level of beauty with the CNC generated bridges these days.

Lengthening the second string though, in the 1970ies quite a few people were convinced that you needed to flatten the tuning of the second string a tad because "that's the way to keep it in proper tune." Nope, don't know who/where started that "theory." Somehow I'm guessing though that it wouldn't be impossible that that's where Arthur got the idea to lengthen the second string on his compensated bridges.

In all of my years of making custom "prescription" compensated bridges whereby the users measured the required string length offsets, the number of time folks needed the 2nd string lengthened was, give or take none, "approximately" ZERO. In other words: NEVER.

I retired from making bridges some years ago but in case you haven't seen this before, here's how to measure the required corrections of string lengths for compensated bridges and a whole bunch of stuff about banjo bridges on my old website:

banjobridge.com/index.html">web.archive.org/web/20170808175559/banjobridge.com/index.html

Fultoncreek - Posted - 04/22/2026:  07:51:39

Bart, thanks for weighing in and for including that link.

I may've misunderstood part of your response, and if so, I apologize. But Arthur's bridges don't lengthen the 2d string; they shorten the 2d and lengthen the 3d.

Bart Veerman - Posted - 04/22/2026:  08:00:36

quote:

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Originally posted by Fultoncreek

Bart, thanks for weighing in and for including that link.



I may've misunderstood part of your response, and if so, I apologize. But Arthur's bridges don't lengthen the 2d string; they shorten the 2d and lengthen the 3d.

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Oops, senior moment - shorten of course!

steve davis - Posted - 04/23/2026:  11:32:10

quote:

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Originally posted by Fultoncreek

Some of you will remember that the late Arthur Hatfield used to make a uniquely compensated bridge that had not only an elongated third string but a shortened second string. Since Arthur's sad passing, has anyone else taken up making bridges to his spec's? Thanks for the help.

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steve davis - Posted - 04/23/2026:  11:44:00

My compensated bridge resembles Arthur's design because that's what a corrected banjo bridge has to look like to do its job.

I taped a 5/8 x 3 inch block to the head positioned to take the place of a regular bridge.

By using a paper clip under each string I slid the clip wire back and forth under each string until the spot on the block was where the fretted and harmonics at the 12th fret read the same (0) on the tuner.



Any straight nut banjo will show the same design when the strings are adjusted in length at the 12th fret.

I've been making bridges similar to this since 1977.

Edited by - steve davis on 04/23/2026 11:44:42