Wooden guitar bridge for Epiphone ES-175 (in Europe)

[Munk]

I just ordered a Epiphone 175 premium and waiting. It has something they call

“Floating Rosewood Base with "Tune-o-Matic" Bridge; Pinned. “

I thought pinned was opposite to floating. But the thing is that I’m allergic to buzz, and I read this is not a good combination with Tune-o-Matic.

So I would like to know if there is any European webshops, where I can buy a wooden bridge which almost fit, so I only have to sand a little.

[339 in june]

You have this one in France :
Catalogue Fred's Guitar : pièces détachées pour guitares et basses - WOOD BRIDGES
Never dealt with them yet, but they are in the market place for some years.

HTH

[kris]

There is a small shop in Warsaw-Poland.

Mostki typu hollow - body - Mostki sta?e - MOSTKI - CZ??CI DO GITARY ELEKTRYCZNEJ - CZ??CI

[Munk]

Thanks. They seem to have several. I will write to them.

[Munk]

PS I asked a luthier here for a price to make one fit. His job alone will cost about 7 times the price for the bridge, so there should be room enough to experiment if this is not too difficult. I imagine putting the sand paper on the top and then sand it.

[kris]

PS I asked a luthier here for a price to make one fit. His job alone will cost about 7 times the price for the bridge, so there should be room enough to experiment if this is not too difficult. I imagine putting the sand paper on the top and then sand it.

You can use base from orginal bridge without sand paper work.
Just change the top ot the bridge if it will fit.
I think Framus wooden bridge is different than standard.

[Munk]

Wow. It sounds very easy, if I understand you correct Kris.

It means, I can just buy a standard wooden bridge (not Framus), and change the original metal bridge. If so, not a job I would expect cost 1.5 hours at a luthier.

[Munk]

PS 339, unfortunately fredguitar.com in France reply, that they dont sell to private customers.

[kris]

Wow. It sounds very easy, if I understand you correct Kris.

It means, I can just buy a standard wooden bridge (not Framus), and change the original metal bridge. If so, not a job I would expect cost 1.5 hours at a luthier.

Exactly.
If the orginal bridge from your new Epiphone fit perfect to the top of the guitar you do not need to work on it.
Just change only the tune-o matic metal top for wooden top.
For example some Hohner arch-tops have two tops of the bridges-metal and wooden.One guitarist prefer metal and another wood.

[Para]

The only thing you need to be careful of is the size of the holes in the TOM bridge, as it's a Gibson product you should be ok they are normally 2/3 mm the same as the wooden bridges but sometimes Japanese/Chinese TOMs have bigger holes. The pinning is done by the bridge height adjustment screws being longer than normal and they fit into 2 holes in the top of the guitar I think it's probably done for rock players who want to use light guage strings to stop the tailpiece moving because of the low string tension with 9s etc. There is a good quality wooden bridge here £20 it's a compensated one for wound 3rd strings. You can find cheaper ones on EBay etc but most of them are not compensated. If you are are not going to use a wound 3rd string then you can use a non compensated top piece. Most replacement wooden bridges these days have feet that fit without sanding but if you use the base you would lose the pinning feature.

Ebony Archtop Bridge

[kris]

I've experimented a lot with wooden bridges and did myself few ebony tops .

[Munk]

Really a lot of great information here. I have not received the guitar, but wondered what the pinning feature was, especially how it could be both floating base and pinned.

I use JS111 so I will buy the quality ebony bridge. It will probably fit as it is. The 11 strings are not so thick, but hope they can keep the bridge in position. If not I guess I need posts shall be long enough to fit the hole in the top.

[kris]

Attachment 17885

My ebony hand made top...experiment...:-)
Not use it ....sold my arch-top.

[Munk]

Kris, do you mean you have cut them yourself?


edit. I understand. But take lot of time I guess.

[kris]

Kris, do you mean you have cut them yourself?


edit. I understand. But take lot of time I guess.

I did it myself...:-)

[Munk]

Ha ha. If one think it was a little trublesome to adjust the guitar in the beginning, he just have to wait for the DIY bridge test.

[kris]

You can use tune-o-matic bridge set up for wooden top.
This way you can find good results in tuning.

[jorgemg1984]

Rastilhos e pontes para modelos Jazz - Thomann Portugal

Mandolin & Banjo

Framus Bridge 06 :: Framus :: Bridges and Saddles :: Hardware :: Guitar and Bass Parts :: Banzai Music GmbH

[Munk]

Lots of oppurtunites. Does it have impact on tone to choose ebony or rosewood? Also for a ES 175 type?

[kris]

Good rosewood is ok for this model of guitar.

[tootZ]

Emma-Music, le spécialiste des pièces détachées d'instruments à cordes
Custom Shop

try these (France)

[339 in june]

Surprising, with such a site, that they don't
Sorry to have given you a non-useful information

[Munk]

Okay. I never tried to change bridge. But I have experimented with wood picks, and had once a very thick black wood pick, maybe ebony, which provided a fantastic sound and I wished it would last forever. But it didn't. When it began to worn, no shops in Copenhagen could tell what brand it was or where to buy a similar one. Afterwards I bought 50 different black wood picks in webshops but nobody came near. Even for the same brand, the picks could vary in tone, and in the end I began to notice some had also too much click sound, so I swithed to dunlop jazztones. But if different wooden bridge has audible impact, I would be tempted to try diffent kinds, cause they don't seem expensive.

[Munk]

Don't appologize 339. It's only nice to get your suggestions

[oldane]

I suggest having a luthier cut a custom bridge saddle (bridge top) for you.

Irish luthier John Moriarty did that until about a year ago, but regrettably he became to busy with his other work, so he stopped offering bridges. He had a very smart way of making them via mail order. You put a tunomatic on your guitar, set it up with your preferred strings, relief and action. Then you adjusted the intonation. Next you took a photo of the tunomatic from above and sent it to Moriarty. He could then enter the photo into some kind of CAD program which controlled his wood cutting machine and thus get a saddle with vere precisely cut compensation. Of course, the height and post spacing was also done to your specs. I have his bridge saddles on all my archtops. Each saddle cost about DKr. 250 (~ US$40). I didn't find that expensive considering the saddle can last for the rest of the guitars life. But as I wrote, sadly he doesn't offer this anymore.

If you have a luthier in your area who is familiar with archtops, you can use the tunomatic trick and bring him the tunomatic and ask him to copy the compensation on it.

Here's a bridge saddle made by Moriarty on my Triggs Stromberg "hommage":