Rear Bridge Hallow Body

[rmrnaas]

I own a oe40 washburn hollow body. what is ths best way to setit up, or can i install a non-movable bridge.

[erikbojerik]

Welcome to the forum.

Is this one of the bodies from eBay? Some of those looked like pretty good deals. Do you still have the trapeze tailpiece?

On these, the bridge location is more or less centerd between the middle fat parts of the f-holes, just angled ever so slightly for compensation. At that location, more than likely, there is not enough brace wood under the bridge to drill and mount a fixed bridge like a tune-o-matic (TOM). You'll need a regular archtop bridge that you can either just place on the top, or (if you must) glue down.

But there's really no reason to glue the thing down. To set one up, measure the distance from the nut to the 12th fret along the center of the neck; double it and that's the scale length. Measure the scale length distance from the nut and that's where to put the bridge. Then string it up, set the bridge height, tune it up, and check the intonation (tuning) at the 12th fret. Loosen the strings, adjust the position and angle of the bridge, re-tune and check intonation again. Repeat until you've got it, then with a sharp pencil make a few discreet marks to show the location of the bridge, in case it ever comes off again.

But it shouldn't, as long as you change one string at a time when changing strings (which is the recommended way to do it anyway...).

[donald k wilson]

I just finished fine tuning mine about a month ago, I changed the base to a solid foot instead of two. (significant improvement of tone and sustain) I used the proceedure as above and it hasn't moved since. dkw

[guitar_ed]

My luthier uses double sticky sided tape on the feet for archtops. Too thin to affect tone, and holds the bridge well enough to remove all the strings, as long as you don't do anything violent to the guitar.

Guitar Ed

[Hoser Rob]

I don't think double stick tape is the preferred way to do it usually.

If you want the bridge to make proper contact with the arched top you should look at www.stewmac.com ... they sell a jig for fitting them. It has a pair of roller on it and you clamp the bridge onto it, put sandpaper on the top, and sand it to fit.