Innovations

Over the past 30 years, Larry Breslin has contributed two innovations to the art of guitar making.

The first was in the 70's when he built a five-stringed acoustic bass, featuring a revolutionary fretless fingerboard, for the famed guitarist, Jaco Pastorius. Unlike a standard fingerboard, thin maple veneers were planed flat to the fingerboard in place of frets. Next, 6 to 10 coats of a two-part clear epoxy were applied, each buffed and flattened between coats.

In this way, the wood fingerboard was protected from Jaco's aggressive attack of the strings. A year later, this system was duplicated by well known guitar manufacturers and continues to be used today.

The second contribution is a recent refinement to the classical guitar bridge. It is an accepted nuisance that humidity changes the string height from the fingerboard when guitars travel from one climate to another. Traditionally, bone saddles or shims are used to adjust the strings back to the desired height.

To minimize this problem, Breslin developed an adjustable pin bridge. He created simple pin mechanisms consisting of screws and sleeves machined from case hardened stainless steel, then meticulously handset them into the bridge, one for each string. Each string's height can be easily adjusted by loosening the string and setting it to the side of the pin. Then, with the use of a small tool, one complete turn of the pin, clock-wise or counter clock-wise, raises or lowers the string .006 inch at the 12th fret.