Dan Erlewine
New member
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2001
- Messages
- 2,153
So, what's so "Special" about that?
I finally finished a project that I have been working on all year — to make a stop-tail play in tune on a '54 Junior. At the end of my project I happened to be working on a '57 Special which you will see here. The same bridge should work fine on the Junior. We'll know soon.
I wasted a dozen bridges (half a dozen of those expensive lightweight aluminum ones 'cuz that's all I had at the time and I was on a roll). 3 Dozen sets of strings, and I wouldn't dare keep track of the hours.
What I have is:
1) A stop-tail which has the two length-wise set screws. These are adusted about 3/32" into the "elbow" of the bridge to allow the bridge to move forward or backward a small amount (hopefully to accomodate .009's as well as .010's). The backside grooves in the bridge lead each string to it's correct point on the saddle.
2) After weeks of trial and error and recording the measurements, I was able to know where to stop on the milling machine — leaving a "take-off" point that I knew would work for each string.
3) A chamfered brass bushing is pressed into each loading hole of the bridge in order to keep the ball end back and the string winding from coming up onto the bridge.
4) Here it is strung up and perfectly in tune. I mounted it on TonePros locking studs — this is the best coupling and tone this Special has had since the owner replaced the original out-of-tune stop-tail with a Badass bridge that wasn't his fave.
5) A good buffing smoothed any hard edges . . .
This one is for my friend Eric E. from Columbus, Ohio.
Now I will "jig up" on a small scale to make up a couple of these puppies (one for myself, for sure).
thanks, dan
PS: I hope it's not inappropriate to post this here.
I finally finished a project that I have been working on all year — to make a stop-tail play in tune on a '54 Junior. At the end of my project I happened to be working on a '57 Special which you will see here. The same bridge should work fine on the Junior. We'll know soon.
I wasted a dozen bridges (half a dozen of those expensive lightweight aluminum ones 'cuz that's all I had at the time and I was on a roll). 3 Dozen sets of strings, and I wouldn't dare keep track of the hours.
What I have is:
1) A stop-tail which has the two length-wise set screws. These are adusted about 3/32" into the "elbow" of the bridge to allow the bridge to move forward or backward a small amount (hopefully to accomodate .009's as well as .010's). The backside grooves in the bridge lead each string to it's correct point on the saddle.
2) After weeks of trial and error and recording the measurements, I was able to know where to stop on the milling machine — leaving a "take-off" point that I knew would work for each string.
3) A chamfered brass bushing is pressed into each loading hole of the bridge in order to keep the ball end back and the string winding from coming up onto the bridge.
4) Here it is strung up and perfectly in tune. I mounted it on TonePros locking studs — this is the best coupling and tone this Special has had since the owner replaced the original out-of-tune stop-tail with a Badass bridge that wasn't his fave.
5) A good buffing smoothed any hard edges . . .
This one is for my friend Eric E. from Columbus, Ohio.
Now I will "jig up" on a small scale to make up a couple of these puppies (one for myself, for sure).
thanks, dan
PS: I hope it's not inappropriate to post this here.
