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Post by ChristoMephisto on Aug 10, 2011 10:13:13 GMT -5
After using the stock Bigsby steel saddles, the ones that are threaded across, tried TUSQ saddles, went back to the stock saddles until a decent replacement could be found. Wanted to see if there any brass saddles for the Bigsby rocker bridge, basically the same as the Mustang's or Jaguar's bridge. Nothing really out there for what I was looking for, until an idea hit me... use Compensated saddles in the bridge, just add three holes for the screws make them level to the four inner holes or follow the curve of the outer screw, ymmv Ordered three sets of saddles from WD Music(evilbay) for $36 Aluminum, Steel-Nickle plated and traditional Brass to cover the bases  I reversed the bridge and had cut back the lip for the strings My friend with the drill press misunderstood and drill two extra holes...   When I finally got it all together, was dreading the whole string height/intonation... Once I tuned it, set the height per saddle, the intonation was bang on for the first two, and the B/E saddle was only out 10 cent Trying out the aluminum on the E/A, steel for the D/G and brass for the B/E, not the usual setup. Found the E/A strings brighter with out losing the bass, the steel really added a nice gritty sparkle, and the brass gave the B/E strings that punch it was missing. Overall a nice setup and twangy sound, bridge rocks back and forth, couldn't be happier  too bad i put a bridge cover on it |
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Post by thetragichero on Aug 10, 2011 12:40:26 GMT -5
you're making me want to try to block off the trem cavity and put a bigsby on a strat!
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Post by roadtonever on Aug 10, 2011 17:18:39 GMT -5
I'd love to see more mods lite this. When the ideal product doesn't exist you bring out the tools! Well done.
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Post by ChristoMephisto on Aug 10, 2011 18:08:20 GMT -5
You could probably apply this mod to any guitar with the same bridge
Jaguar, Mustang, Jazzmaster. Like thetragichero suggested, even a Strat if you got the right bridge
After a few weeks of hunting on line to see if anyone has done this
turns out a Fender Custom Shop has one, but its a through body without a trem of any type...
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Post by cynical1 on Aug 10, 2011 19:44:23 GMT -5
Very clever solution.
+1 for making me take a closer look at a Bigsby.
HTC1
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Post by thetragichero on Nov 11, 2011 13:38:12 GMT -5
finally did this to my jazzmaster!   still needs a setup, but i prefer these to the six individual saddles |
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Post by sumgai on Nov 11, 2011 14:17:52 GMT -5
tth, Sorry, had to resize your second photo, it was way oversize. No harm done, now that ProBoards lets us use the width/height attributes within the IMG tags. And secondly, I'd like to use this photo as the answer to Karnak's Question - "How do you prevent a guitarist from properly intonating his strings?" IOW, they'll be close, but never close enough (at least not for me). As noted by Christo in the first post, some of the strings can be as far off as 10 cents (10 parts of a semi-tone). Most people, including the majority of your audience members, can detect mis-tuning as little as 5 cents off. That might explain why the dance floor is empty, and why the club manager is not asking you to come back and play there ever again.   But hey, if it's got the right Mojo (Tone), then who am I to pee in your Cheerios?! ;D sumgai |
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Post by thetragichero on Nov 11, 2011 15:14:31 GMT -5
i'll take less than perfect intonation over the strings slipping out of the slots like they did with the old saddles, rendering them unplayable
plus it's more than close enough for punk rock ;-)
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Post by sumgai on Nov 12, 2011 5:12:03 GMT -5
i'll take less than perfect intonation over the strings slipping out of the slots like they did with the old saddles, rendering them unplayable
plus it's more than close enough for punk rock ;-) Point taken. Though I would've just filed a deeper slot in my bridge pieces (which is exactly what I did in 1963, before I learned to play the thing, and not bang on it like it was a drum or sumpin'.....) Not sayin' anything here, ya know, I'm just sayin', that's all........  sumgai |
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Post by gumbo on Nov 12, 2011 5:35:46 GMT -5
.......right...  |
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Post by cynical1 on Nov 12, 2011 13:38:07 GMT -5
What would be truly slick is if the compensation part of the saddle could rotated and locked. This would allow a tighter offset for intonating pairs of strings, while still offering the slash and burn approach to strumming.
HTC1
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Post by sumgai on Nov 12, 2011 17:13:17 GMT -5
What would be truly slick is if the compensation part of the saddle could rotated and locked. This would allow a tighter offset for intonating pairs of strings, while still offering the slash and burn approach to strumming. Isn't that kinda what Full Contact Hardware (by Babicz) is doing? Only, speaking as an engineer who likes to over-engineer, better....  |
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Post by cynical1 on Nov 13, 2011 0:04:23 GMT -5
What would be truly slick is if the compensation part of the saddle could rotated and locked. This would allow a tighter offset for intonating pairs of strings, while still offering the slash and burn approach to strumming. Isn't that kinda what Full Contact Hardware (by Babicz) is doing? Only, speaking as an engineer who likes to over-engineer, better.... Good eye. It's exactly what Babicz is doing, sans the groove deep enough to grow corn in. I've never witnessed the FCH saddle at full depth, but I have to wonder if it wouldn't have the same type of effect that too deep of a nut groove would have on the string. Probably not because they're selling them at a pretty good clip. But hey, the great ones create...and the rich ones steal... HTC1 |
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Post by sumgai on Nov 13, 2011 2:52:56 GMT -5
JFrankParnell has one on his rig, I've seen it... pretty nice, IMO. Get his take on it, see whatcha think.
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Post by spellcaster on Nov 14, 2011 0:48:32 GMT -5
I recently installed the ZZ Guitarworks Bigsby easy mount kit on my Strat, which combines a B50 that mounts by the strap knob screw, and a Space bridge which has three compensated saddles. It's worked out well overall but I'm finding there's a limitation to the fixed bevel saddles. I'm going to upgrade the saddles to the Wilkinson pivoting type. 
(EDITed by sumgai to reduce the image size, so that viewers with small(er) screens don't encouter such severe horizontal scrolling. ) |
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Post by thetragichero on Nov 14, 2011 17:43:03 GMT -5
that's purty!
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Post by ChristoMephisto on Nov 21, 2011 11:37:21 GMT -5
finally did this to my jazzmaster! Not sure but I think your E/A and the D/G saddles are backwards The way mine are set up is how I see them on others, and have no problems with the intonation Cool to see this thread still going, thought it died off |
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Post by sumgai on Nov 21, 2011 12:59:40 GMT -5
CM,
To my eyes, those saddle pieces look to be 'reversible' - they can be oriented in either direction, because the 'offset' is more or less a mirror image. At least it looks that way in the photos...
In fact, all three of them look (again, to me) like they could be swapped around to any other position. Did the instructions say each one is designated to be used under some certain string pair?
sumgai
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Post by cynical1 on Nov 21, 2011 13:26:01 GMT -5
If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say the one on the left should be swapped with the middle one.
It's still going to be a big compromise no matter how you go.
HTC1
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Post by thetragichero on Nov 21, 2011 16:19:32 GMT -5
no instructions, but looking at c1's suggestion, i bet that'll help me better intonate the low e (well, d on my guitars) string
good catch!
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Post by ChristoMephisto on Nov 24, 2011 11:45:05 GMT -5
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Post by sumgai on Nov 25, 2011 21:34:37 GMT -5
Christo,
I was gonna modify your post to show "the image", because you said "here's the best pic....". Glad I didn't - that's a great article/sort-of-rant about compensation and intonation. We'll be adding that to our Links post in the Reference section, you can be sure of that - thanks!
sumgai
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Post by ChristoMephisto on Nov 26, 2011 7:34:39 GMT -5
Was mainly looking of for the pic at first to help show what I was talking about, but agreed, turned out to be a good article.
And it's true none of the compensated saddle vendors/manufacturers don't give instructions, so i had to surf to see other teles to see it.
cheers
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