12 String Tunematic Bridge

[Brad]

does anyone know where i can get a 12 string bridge for a decent price ive seen the one on the allparts site but was wandering if anyone knew of any others

[Mr Alex]

If you're after a tuneomatic, well, dont necessarily do this, but mine have enough space to reslot for a 12 string spacing, so you COULD do that. I'd file the top, re bevel, and slot.

[Reaper]

There's a non-tune-o-matic at stewmac: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailp...ric_Guitar.html.

Probably not quite what you want, but if you run out of options...

[thegarehanman]

universaljems has one. jeez guys, wouldn't that be the first place you'd suggest?!

[j. pierce]

I've got a cheap Sanatoga brand twelve string (one of those weird $150 dollar guitars from eBay) that's got a tune-o-matic set up- they just double notched a regular tune-o-matic saddle, like Mr. Alex mentioned. Actually intonates fairly well, I was suprised. Better than some of the three-saddle Tele's I've worked with.

I've been wanting to pick up one of those bridges from Universaljems or somewhere, but seeing as this is just a bang around on guitar for me right now, I've got better things to spend the 70 bucks on.

[Brad]

I understand about renotching the saddles but how do the extra strings work in the stop tailpiece

[Devon Headen]

You could use a stop tailpiece and then send 6 strings through the body or you could send all 12 through the body.

[j. pierce]

oops - didn't even think about that. I'll have to check mine out when I get out of work this morning, but if I remember correctly, the tailpiece has sort of a an oval-ish recess to acomidate two ball ends from the paired strings, but I think both strings go through the same standard hole - looks like something that could be modded fairly easily. If I was scratch building one, I guess I'd go the through-body route.

[j. pierce]

I checked, my TOM style tailpiece on that cheap 12string has the oblong/oval recess to allow for two string-ball ends, but it also has twelve smaller holes through it. Although, I don't see why you couldn't modify a regular TOM, but it'd be difficult. I'd imagine the string-through approach would be nice. Another option would be a tailpiece like this one from Stew mac - I've seen them in various places and they don't seem to be too hard to get, and the cheaper 6 string ones I've seen up close look like they'd be easier to modify than a standard TOM bridge.

[j. pierce]

quick webcam pics of my 12 string tailpiece, since I very often don't make sense when I talk:

The top two are the back and front of my 12 strings tailpiece, and the bottom is my regular TOM. Just experimenting, (with the gauge of strings I use on mine, at least) you can easily run both strings from each pair through the single hole on a 6 string TOM - won't look as nice though. I imagine it'd work better and look nicer if you at least modified the back end so the recess would accommodate both strings though.

if that picture doesn't show, I guess just wait a bit, my host has been a bit slow sometimes.

I'm going to stop rambling now. I love me a 12 string though.