Tune o matic bridge radius and neck radius

[dannyhill]

Hi everyone,

I bought and modded (of course) an Epi Wildkat a while back, got it playing well with the front of the bigsby jacked up and a set of 11s on it. It came with an ABR bridge but with the original nut and 10s, Tusq nut and 10s, or Tusq nut and 11s when I tried to stagger the action across the 12 fret I could never get below 2.25mm low E and 1.75m high E, and that's after some very rough and ready fret filing. Anyway, all well and good BUT the D and G are almost as high as the low E and certainly higher than the A. Is this just down to badly cut saddles from the factory? I had a go at slotting the D lower but ended up with a lot more fret buzz so re-filled it with some super glue and then cut a small groove in it so its sits half way in. But then I got strange ringing/buzzing at 12th fret and 13th on the A (out with the files again). Now I have read on the internet that matching bridge radius to the neck radius always makes the D and G higher (yeah I know, there's a lot of rubbish on the internet, but this guy seemed to be a proffesional luthier on his own site).

So, do I order a replacement one (I recently bought a gold Nashville one from Warmoth with the E rings for another project but the saddles and screws were so loose on 3 or 4 of it that I didn't use it eventually), probably better a Nashville type, as although I have a bigsby on it I probably could do with more 'intonation range' cause perhaps the bridge posts weren't set too too accurately? Or do I put on my Wilkinson 14" roller bridge that I had intended to use originally which also is great for intonnation range, BUT, it is a roller. Do I lose sustain? Will it transfer less/different (non-vintage tone)? For sure strings will last longer and the bigsby action might be smoother still? What do we feel about rollers? I saw on one video a guy did with his 3 p90 Riviera that there seemed to be less higher harmonic overtones with the roller compared to the original ABR (he hated the buzzy retainier wire)
Buy a Nashville TOM or stick the Wilkinson roller on?

All advice would be most welcome!
Hope you all had a good weekend,

Danny

[dannyhill]

Here you go John:








Sorry for the size. I can't see how to re-size them from Photobucket.

D

[Deleted]

Apr 13, 2014 10:42:18 GMT -5 dannyhill said:

Hi everyone,
the action across the 12 fret I could never get below 2.25mm low E and 1.75m high E, and that's after some very rough and ready fret filing.

Danny, that's huge. When you say you couldn't get below that, you mean, you got buzzes or that the bridge is mechanically unable to lower than that?
To give you some references, in all my guitars, (especially the Kramer 210, Carvin DC135 and Ibanez ARZ800) the relief/action goes like :
- relief measured @10th fret with capoed 1st and 24th fret : 0.2 mm
- action height @24 fret : Low E : 1.6mm
- action height @24 fret : High E : 1.2mm

- action height @12 fret : Low E : 1.2mm
- action height @12 fret : High E : 1.0mm

Without buzzes. 2.25 and 1.75 @12th fret seem huge.

[dannyhill]

Fender and Gibson reguarly recommend approx 2mm and 1.5mm, so its no far off. I don't do tapping by the way.

[JohnH]

Nice pics!

I've never had a Bigsby, but Ive often thought of adding one to my LP (like at 10 pounds, its not heavy enough already), since its black, getting old, and I think Neil Young is awesome.

But from I technical standpoint, it seems to me that none of it makes sense if you don't have a roller bridge, since all the string movements due to the trem have to happen over it. I don't know if that would affect tone, though you might lose that classic, vintage 'out-of-tune Bigsby' sound.

[Deleted]

Apr 15, 2014 10:13:06 GMT -5 dannyhill said:

Fender and Gibson reguarly recommend approx 2mm and 1.5mm, so its no far off. I don't do tapping by the way.

that's the "guaranteed" action for cheap chinese guitars for buzzless operation. (btw, Gibson gives 1.8-1.2mm @12, Fender 1.6-1.6mm @17) However this is far from perfect. According to my experience, using this high action in a perfect guitar (fretwork wise), is like condemning it to eternal unplayability.

Nothing to do with tapping.

[dannyhill]

Your point is well made GreekDude, and when I'm a good enough guitarist I might invest in some good guitars, with the appropriate price tags.
In any case:
Higher action means that you get more sustain but poor intonation.

Lower action sacrifices sustain for playability and intonation accuracy.

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2014 6:01:03 GMT -5 dannyhill said:

Your point is well made GreekDude, and when I'm a good enough guitarist I might invest in some good guitars, with the appropriate price tags.
In any case:
Higher action means that you get more sustain but poor intonation.

Lower action sacrifices sustain for playability and intonation accuracy.

that's the thing here, above a certain point (which is lower than "standard" low action), you gain nothing in terms of tone, sustain. The only thing you gain is .... bigger finger muscles.
Anyways, you know how obsessed with sustain i am, personally i couldn't spot any differences in sustain between medium, high, standard low, and low action, even silly low. If the wood does not want to sustain, then even the highest action height won't help.

An ultra nice article on string action height : www.ibanezrules.com/tech/setup/action.htm
in fact, the only one in the net i've found that sets it right!

[dannyhill]

Greek dude:
This is copy pasted from your link:
"Silly Low - Some like the neck perfectly straight or with the slightest amount of relief, and the action right on the frets. Perfectly straight neck and extremely low action will give you playability that's unparalleled for some people, a very low resistance to fretting, but there are sacrifices. The lower the action the more the strings are being choked by the frets. It has a way of disguising fret buzz by smoothing it out. On a medium action you'll hear the buzz quite well as the string is usually just pinging off of one or possibly two frets. On silly low the string is pinging off of so many frets it's not as apparent as "buzz", but what all that contact with the frets is doing is robbing your notes of the full tone that string could offer if it was allowed to breath. Processed signals can virtually hide the choking, but if you ever plug into a clean channel you'll notice right away. You can get away with silly low if you've got an extremely light pick attack. Typically in a setup this would be a perfectly straight neck to .1-.3mm of neck relief, and action height at the last fret of 1.5mm or lower. Not good for playing big bends without impeccable fretwork and a flatter radius fretboard, and even then the lower you go the less you'll be able to bend without choking. At 2mm you can get a 3 step bend but 5 steps you will not. You will also have to be more precise in muting as it's much easier to "mute" a string into the frets and create noise. I love the playability of it when I get to set one up like this, but I loose a little feel of the string when it's that close and prefer just a little better grip I feel I get at just a little higher action. Your Mileage May Vary [YMMV].

Standard Low - Adding just a little more neck relief and raising the action will give a cleaner tone, longer sustain, and tolerable buzz with a medium/light pick attack. This is usually the typical setup for guitars I ship. Good clear tone on the majority of the neck with and a light fingering feel. Typical is .2-.3mm of neck relief and 1.6mm string height on the low E, and 1.5mm on the high E at the last fret. This gives me the effortless playing of silly low but just enough tension on the fingertips to get the feel of the string, especially for bending, and muting becomes a little easier. As I mature I have grown to like this setup better in the middle range. Tastes change, and you should set your guitar up to your taste.

Low - Continue raising the action will get still cleaner tone, and lighter buzz with a medium pick attack. The higher you go the more tension your fingers will feel, and this creates more control of the string for me. I typically keep the relief down in the .3mm range to reduce the amount of "boing" from the slightly higher action in the 4-12th fret range. Typical is .3-.5mm of neck relief and 2mm string height on the low E, and 1.8mm on the high E at the last fret.

Medium - You can still add a little neck relief but after a certain point more relief just isn't an advantage. Raising the action height is and will continue to clean and fatten up your tone and increase the feel of the strings under your fingers. Medium relief is .5-.6mm of neck relief action of 2.5mm on the low E and 2-2.5mm on the high E.

High - Lots of frontbow and high action will give you a very clean playing guitar with full tone, and lots of extra calluses. However much neck relief you want and action on the low E at 3mm or more, action on the high E over 2.2mm to as high as you want."

According to your measurements your guitars enter "Standard low".
I have no idea what mine is as I have never measured action at the 24th fret, but I set neck relief (measured at 8th fret) I set at approx 0.25mm on all my guitars.

[4real]

Have you measured the fretboard curvature?

I'd be inclined to make a template of the fretboard curvature (extrapolated to the bridge) and file all the saddles down, reslot to suit and then raise the entire bridge to the correct height, leaving more height on the bass side for the increased string movement and so space required...

At least, for what you describe, the middle strings being inappropriately high compared to the others...does that make sense or am I missing the problem?

As for rollers, they may well be superior, but you need to increase the tension over the bridge by lowering the bigsby back down to a tighter angle over the bridge. My Khalers use reasonably big rollers and this is generally the key to getting good tone out of them. On my tele for instance, I've had to shim the neck to increase that breakover point. The high strings are particularly sensitive to such things.

[dannyhill]

Hi Mr '4Real',

No, I haven't actually. I trusted the 12" spec from Epiphone.
I did try to file down the D saddle but made a hash job of it, but what you say, if I was confident in being able to do it is the right way (or buy another bridge in case mine was just a 'bad one' - cheap guitars and all that).
Anyway, cut a long story short. I put the Wilkinson roller bridge on and:
(1) It stays in tune when I waggle gently.
(2) I can now intonate it properly due to it being wider than the ABR
(3) Possibly related to the intonation or just a bridge with an accurate curvature? The string heights now go 2.3, 2.2, 2.1, 2.0, 1.9, 1.8!

FYI My action at the 22nd fret (I don't have 24) is lower than at the 12th, which means I guess, that compared to Greekdude I have more neck relief than him.
It sounds ok unplugged, I will try to get time tomorrow to plug it in and play. TBH I believe the break angle with my washers/nuts on still makes it greater than on my teles, but I will check out the tone tomorrow and maybe lower the Bisgby by a nut or two accordingly.

BTW I now get some buzzing along most of the high E (8th fret on wards) - need more neck relief? The problem I had on the A string has gone. The ringing/fretting out at the D string around the 12th (and now 13th since I filed the 13th) fret? I found a lump/bump/kink on the underside of the string just around the 12th fret. So now more filing for now and see how we get on after the next string change.
Thanks all!

D