Les Paul bridge

[leeham]

I am currently trying to put together a les paul style kit guitar and am trying to work out where to put the bridge(Tune-O-Matic). The guitar body has no holes to put the bridge posts in and I am unsure where to drill as I do not wont to end up with intonation problems, having to keep filling and drilling to get exact position correct and generally just messing the whole thing up.

I was wondering if anyone on here knew exactly where to put the four post holes for the bridge and the tailpiece, and the best methods for doing so.

Any help with this would be most appreciated!

[ChrisK]

This may help;

Fret (and Bridge) Calculator


Bear in mind that the LP scale length advertised as 24 3/4" IS NOT. Most tend to be 24 9/16" or so per an interview with Paul Reed Smith on his experiences.

[sumgai]

lee,

Hi, and welcome to the NutzHouse! ;D

Actually, this is relatively easy to determine - simply measure (carefully!) the distance from the front edge of your fret nut to the center of the top of your 12th fret..... double that, and you've got the scale length! Easy, no?

Now, to find just where to drill the post holes, simply insert the saddles into the bridge (if they're not already there), lay the bridge on the body (oops, I'm presuming that the neck is already properly mounted here, if it's not a set neck - you did say "kit"), and set the bridge saddles at the scale length determined above.

Now, recall that the high E string is almost always the scale length, but the rest of the strings are always longer - not by much, but something a bit longer than the nominal scale length. You can slant the bridge if you wish, thus introducing an offset. Some makers/players like this, others don't, it's your choice.

In either event, you now know where to drill the post holes. But be aware, if the entire bridge itself is adjustable, forwards and backwards (a small set screw against the post), then you should move the post holes a bit back (towards the neck), just to give yourself room for that adjustment.

I always lay out a pair of straight pieces of wood up against each side of the neck, running just short of the bridge area. This tells me where to set the thing, side to side.

Any questions, you know where to come. ;D

HTH


sumgai

[leeham]

Thanks for the information guys, you may have saved me from killing my guitar
So, once i've placed the bridge in postion, should I put the tailpiece a reasonable, estimated, distance from the bridge?

[RJB]

We had a good discussion about this a while back.
This might be helpful.

Linky thingy

[sumgai]

Ron,

So that's where that thread got to...... I couldn't remember, and didn't want to get lee's hopes up, then have to dash them. Thanks, I'll bet you've made his day..... +1 for you.


Lee,

Check out all of that linked thread, it'll answer all the questions asked so far in this one.




sumgai