Chibson imports...

[Stub Mandrel]

Have you got a closeup of a good 8-string bridge?

[Wolverinebass]

12 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Have you got a closeup of a good 8-string bridge?

The one I have on mine is the Schaller 471 bridge which has independent saddles for the different sets of strings. The downside is that it doesn't have grooves cut into the saddles and youd have to do it yourself. I don't know if it's made anymore.

 

Most of the other versions used on commercially available basses are of the tune-o-matic variety.

[Stub Mandrel]

Just curious how it's all fitted in the space available. 

 

I can only find pictures of bridges for 8 evenly spaced strings.

Edited yesterday at 09:29 by Stub Mandrel

[BigRedX]

Here are the best bridge close-ups of the two 8-string basses that I used to own:

 

 

Both have individually movable saddles for the main and octave string in each course.

 

The second image is of the Carlo Robelli bass which has the same bridge and tail-piece combination as that fitted to the Dean and Schecter 8-string basses.

 

As @Wolverinebass has said the best 8-string bass bridges used to be those made by Schaller which AFAICS are now out of production. 

 

Edited yesterday at 09:52 by BigRedX

[NancyJohnson]

Just got notification the guitar has shipped.  Will find out soon enough if it's terrible.

 

What a hoot.

[prowla]

On 05/01/2026 at 09:51, BigRedX said:

Here are the best bridge close-ups of the two 8-string basses that I used to own:

 

 

Both have individually movable saddles for the main and octave string in each course.

 

The second image is of the Carlo Robelli bass which has the same bridge and tail-piece combination as that fitted to the Dean and Schecter 8-string basses.

 

As @Wolverinebass has said the best 8-string bass bridges used to be those made by Schaller which AFAICS are now out of production. 

 

I wouldn't mind one of those Washburns.

[Stub Mandrel]

I guess light string on top works best with a pick? Other way round for fingersyle? Or aren't they very good with fingers?

[BigRedX]

2 hours ago, prowla said:

I wouldn't mind one of those Washburns.

 

It wasn't the most comfortable of instruments to play and the neck on mine had suffered from a serious break at some point which what been reasonably well repaired but then hidden under a much better re-finish so I didn't discover it until I stripped the finish off with the aim to have a more interesting colour...

 

 

50 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I guess light string on top works best with a pick? Other way round for fingersyle? Or aren't they very good with fingers?

 

IME it doesn't really matter which way around the octave and main strings were. It only matters when playing with a pick if you only pluck in one direction - all up or all down stokes. And as I'm quite a physical player it was easy enough for me to pluck both strings even when playing finger style, although I preferred to play mine with a pick.