Hey all-- A few folks from the old forum suggested that this entry from a while back is a useful way for newbies to understand correcting the intonation on an archtop guitar with a floating bridge (i.e., like an ES-125, ES-150, or any hollow-body guitar that lacks a mounted, stationary bridge). Unlike those guitars, the floating bridge guitars allow you to ‘bend’ the sound by virtue of the fact that the bridge itself is movable. (this will make sure there is definitely no movement and it will allow the earth to be circulated to the bridge. You might find ashtray bridges, almost used exclusively with Telecaster shape guitars, will dig into the side of your hand. reply #4. The side walls lock your saddles in … Remove the bridge's top and thumbwheels. 8 years ago A Ground Connection connects every piece of metal on your guitar and acts as a return path to the amp. Conversely, low action can cause fret buzzing, meaning that care must be taken when sanding down an acoustic guitar bridge to adjust action. The very first Telecaster used a three-saddle bridge and set the trend for guitar design to modern day. Leaving a guitar in a hot environment can cause glue to melt or dry the glue out. This would be easier if you had a scroll saw but not many people would have them in their house! This facilitates quick retuning in the event of a string breaking, and strives to provide tuning stability similar to a fixed bridge guitar. If you own an electric guitar with a floating bridge then you need to consider the tension on your bridge. 5.0 of 5 stars (7) Reviews. malcolm barclay 3:05 p.m. March 12 2007 Your guitar comes with a whole panoply of features that should be able to tweak to get it into shape, and most of these adjustments can be made with nothing more than a screwdriver, a little care, and some patience. I marked out and chiseled the channel for the spring to fit.Once the channel was cut i placed the single spring onto the bridge and tightened the spring holder so the spring was very tense. Share it with us! on Introduction. I measured how far the bridge sat from the top of the cavity and marked it onto the lock. on Introduction. ... who had someone fix his stripped JT-590 with Heli-Coils. Let me know how you go! With basic trem bridges, you can add unique accents and smooth vibrato. Fixed bridges allow for simple restringing for the most inexperienced of players – you really can’t go wrong sliding a string through a hole and up to the tuner. A mistreated and poorly working tremolo is a major pain in the butt and in a live situation, it can be hell on earth. Re-tune the guitar to see if the extra tension of the strings being in tune will pull the bridge back up and make it still "float." To adjust floating bridge intonation on a guitar, first check the 12th-fret harmonic and the fretted 12th-fret … The biggest problem is the bridge. Firstly de-tune all your strings so they are very loose! Open quick view dialog for TonePros Standard Locking Tune-o … Proper maintenance of your Floyd Rose type floating guitar bridge will help it perform as intended and keep you happy. Erik Hodges has been a stringed instrument repair technician since 1978 and the principal guitar tech at Strings & Things Music since 1994. )Why would we want to do this you ask?Main reason:Well this design of bridge does not allow the user to tune the guitar differently from what it has been setup to be without having a grueling task of tuning, changing spring tensions, tuning again, changing spring tensions again and so on and so forth till the bridge is sitting properly on the guitar! Blocking a floating tremolo is similar to this idea in that it allows you to tighten the springs up so that the bridge does not move until the bar is depressed. I don't have many guitars, but this was my favorite when it was all setup, I mean just the feel of the guitar is great. The best method is to change strings one at a time but makes cleaning the fretboard difficult. A guitar bridge attaches to thebody of the guitar with its purpose to anchor the guitar strings to the body ofthe guitar. These bridges are most often found on hollow or semihollow electric guitars, where drilling into the top to mount a fixed bridge could weaken the structure of the guitar or impede its acoustic resonance. Most floating bridges are extremely comfortable for your picking hand, as they have flatter surfaces to rest the side of your palm. Double locking tremolos will keep your guitar stable and in tune almost for as long as you use the strings. Step 3. If the floating bridge doesn’t have enough tension and it will go below the horizontal line of the body and the strings will touch the frets which will cause the buzz. Install floating bridge pickup for mandolin or archtop guitar $65 Install banjo pickup with flange-mounted output jack $65 . I was going to go into a whole project to buy a fixed bridge and somehow try to put it on my guitar... but this looks alot easier and I wont have to cut my precious guitar! The Stewart-MacDonald Bridge Fitting Jig is for use with a two-piece Classical? It’s machined and formed from stainless steel, and has oversized bridge posts that lock in with the guitar’s body inserts to increase resonance and fix the bridge in a stationary position. 1. If this happens, be careful—it’s easy to ruin the screw slots or scrape the guitar finish. There is no one bridge to rule them all. In many cases, guitars with fixed bridges will also have locking tuners, which keep the strings in place at the headstock. I'm very happy with my bridge lock, as I'm constantly changing the tuning of my guitar it is very handy not to be having to spend an hour + messing around with springs and the crazy tuning techniques that come with having a floating bridge.I also found that where the bridge is connected to the body of the guitar i got a warmer more full tone out of the guitar. The bonus is that still having the locking system, the intonation is better. It is a nice playing guitar but the floating bridge moves around a bit. There is only a few tools you need to create the lock...Tools:- Measure- Pencil- Saw- File- Drill- Chisel - Hammer/MalletMaterial:- Scrap piece of wood (size of the scrap piece of wood will be determined in the next step!). Do you really need one? After adjusting the saddles, you can either remove the trem block or start to release the two spring claw screws. When you buy an electric guitar, the choice between a fixed bridge and a floating bridge is a major factor. If the bridge once again comes up from where it should be, de-tune your guitar and repeat step 3. There’s also a lot of subsections within bridge variations and we’ll touch on these too, as different manufacturers employ unique techniques. Acoustic? Bridges that also sit quite high above the body can become uncomfortable after a long time playing. It holds the bridge base while the bridge feet are sanded to match the instrument's top curvature. The stainless steel saddles have a crisp string relief edge, eliminating dull tones. OK, so first things first, what we are going to accomplish here is to stop the bridge from being able to freely move (basically we are going to stop it from doing what it was designed to do! First, identify the style of trem bridge on your guitar. 11 years ago What is a guitar bridge? take out the springs and your bridge will be free to fall out of the guitar so be careful not to lift the guitar up and the bridge … Modding Question: floating tremolo system to fixed bridge - posted in Guitar Q & A: Though I'm currently trying to sell it, I'm considering the possibilities just in case it doesn't sell. Don't ask me why, but it works. Advanced double locking tremolos such as the Floyd Rose became popular in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, as rock and metal went through their ‘hair’ phases. The bridge limits longitudinal movement of the string, meaning the strings maintain stability when performing bends and vibrato. Floating bridges were first introduced on archtop guitars way back in the 1920s. Of course, people will have their own preferences and argue that a specific type is the greatest bridge ever created. He has built dozens of instruments including guitars, banjos, a mandolin, a mountain dulcimer and numerous speaker cabinets, and has worked on … on Introduction, This would be better if more than two of the images were your own, can you fix this? I would just take the trem arm off and treat it like any other fixed bridge guitar. It’s also super thin, so the floating bridge lays flat on the body. Proper maintenance of your Floyd Rose type floating guitar bridge will help it perform as intended and keep you happy. the bridge of my guitar is not flush with the body it is sticking up every time i try to tune my guitar how can i fix this. However, at the “micro” level, you can say that a particular form of the same kind of design is better than another. This is called a floating bridge. I simply peel off a strip of tape for each foot of the bridge, stick it on, and then place the bridge back in it’s original position against the blue tape. Check out our article on how to change strings on a floating bridge guitar if you’d like to find out more about the inner workings. Here are some pictures of my custom one i did and the block, 8 years ago No matter how good your bridge is, you’ll need tuners and a nut of the same quality. If your saddles travel a lot during intonation, the overall tuning of the instrument and balance of the bridge can be affected. ='), 10 years ago Are you still able to use a whammy bar after this? Genius work with this tutorial, thanks heaps man. I was told to take away the whammy bar and set the two screws (the ones that hold the springs in position) in order to have the bridge parallel to the body. For instance, a Both floating and fixed variants have their pros and cons - exactly why we’re going to explore what the best choice is for you. Leave a comment with any questions! 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