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Drilling holes for new bridge


jezzaboy
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I have bought a P bass body from Northwest guitars. It`s got a natural finish and looks nice (in the pictures anyway) and has been routed but I need to drill and fit the bridge, there is a hole for the earth wire but thats it.

It`s going to have a standard Fender neck on it and a nice Gotoh BBOT 5 screw hole bridge but whats the best way to make sure the bridge is in the right place? Ta!

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Some will describe this better than me, but...

Assuming it is a fretted neck, the distance from the nut to the 12th fret should be equally the distance of the 12th fret to the bridge saddles.  The saddles should be in a position(the mid way of travel)  so they  can be adjusted either towards or backwards, for intonation adjustments.  Use string( the E and G) from the machine heads to the bridge to line up the position of the strings.

 

Take your time and carefully think this out. Possibly YouTube has a video?

Edited by stereoplayer
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24 minutes ago, MoonBassAlpha said:

I  can't see that the strings will ever intonate at less than double the distance from nut to 12th fret, so why not start with that as the furthest adjustment position? 

? Closest adjustment position? 

Maybe 1/4 v 3/4 or 1/3 v 2/3...

Cosmetic apperance may come in to it a little.

Fore and Aft. between pickup and end of body, aligning with a control knob etc.

Earth wire hole may help in comparing pics n plans of the web with bodys with bridge pilot holes

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Having just fitted the bridge to the Wal save, it's fresh in my mind.

There are two things that have to be right - the left /right position and the forwards/backwards position

For the left /right, my preferred method it to temporarily fit the top and bottom strings, tightened enough for them to be straight and then position the bridge so the strings are equidistant from the fretboard sides and/or in line with (or at least symmetrical to) the pickup poles:

fygLJtkl.jpg

Then, for the forward/backward you need to position it with enough saddle movement available to intonate the strings.  For this, I do the following:

- I check how much adjustment the bridge has (they vary!) from the furthest usable forward position of the saddles to the furthest usable rearward position of the saddles.  Ideally, this is at least 5mm.

- Generally, the top G intonates at around 1mm longer than scale length and the bottom E (or B on a 5 string) 4 or 5mm longer than scale length.  It will NEVER be shorter than scale length

- So I wind the G saddle fully forward

- I then position the bridge with the G saddle at exactly scale-length, make sure it's square to the centre-line (and double check the above alignment) and mark the screw positions

- I then know that all of the other saddles are capable of being adjusted to positions longer than that scale length by up to 5mm and that therefore all strings will be capable of being intonated correctly. 

Edited by Andyjr1515
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