Problem With Tone Pros Bridge

[mu_sound]

I have a tone pros wraparound intonable bridge installed on my guitar, unfortunately I didnt take into account the increased height of this bridge when setting my neck angle, so I had to machine a little off the back of the brige and a little off the adjusting studs as well in order to be able to bring the action down to a tolerable level. In the process I guess the vibration of the cutter on the bridge set three of the little springloaded intonation adjustment screws loose. In other words they dont just stay and spin around in the shaft as the saddle rides along the top, they have a tendency to slip out, not exactly desirable from an intonation point of view. Since I modified them, I doubt that Tone Pros will be at all interested in solving my problem. What I cant figure out is how they were held in to begin with. Unless the spring was somehow holding the screw in place? I cant see any retaining rings on them or anything. Anyone else had this problem? Any ideas?

[brian d]

There should be small retainer springs which clip onto the shaft of the screw towards the head end, just inside the bridge body which hold the srcrews in place. They may be saddle retainer clips or flat c-clips.

Hope this helps.

You may be able to order the C-clips from Tone-Pros. I changed saddles from one TOM body to another, and was able to place the C-clips to retain the screws, but you need an instrument that is small enough to hold these small pieces but strong enough to push them on. (I was lucky that I had a pair of orthodontic pliers from my day job to do it)

Hope this helps

Brian.

PS, it may have been better to recess the bridge into the body rather than mod the bridge.

[mu_sound]

There should be small retainer springs which clip onto the shaft of the screw towards the head end, just inside the bridge body which hold the srcrews in place.  They may be saddle retainer clips or flat c-clips. 

Hope this helps.

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Definitely! Thanks! I just got in there with a flashlight and found one of the little buggers near the low E string saddle. They're the c-clips you had in that tiny little picture. I'm not sure if there the same as snap rings, I think snap rings have two little holes that youre supposed to jimmy around with a spoecial tool, but you almost always end up with snap ring bits flying around the room (wear goglges please). I think this variety is more benign, and I might be able to find them at a hardware/automotive store, if I'm lucky. Otherwise I have to get them from tone pros. Who incidentally have a pdf on replacing the saddle retaining clips on their tune-o-matic version. I guess these wraparound styles havent been around long enough for someone to screw up the retainer clips.

PS, it may have been better to recess the bridge into the body rather than mod the bridge.

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Are you crazy man, and screw around with that finish that took me hours to polish up??? Just kidding, It was definitely one of the options under consideration. I decided to mod the bridge since I thought it was much easier to chuck up a 4" x 5" brige than a odd shaped large monster witha neck like a guitar. As it turns out I took out plenty of material from the bridge (.050") and adjusting nuts, so much so that now I have a bit of buzz on the low E.

Is there a good primer on "set ups and intonation" I think that is a highly ignored topic in guitar building. For example what is the tradeoff between filing the slot in the nut a little lower vs. lowering the saddle a bit? I ended up just trying to copy the setup on my PRS, but I'm finding that the change in bridge made such a huge difference that I amost built an unplayable guitar (the action was way high and i think I should have located the bridge studs about a 1/4" back, or conversely mounted the nut and the rest of the fretboard a little further up, big OOPS!!!) It turns out the highest strings on the PRS sit about .435" from the guitar body, unfortunately the tone pros wraparound bridge is .6" tall.

Now that its built I've finally got it to a place where its intonated (unless those darn saddles move on me) and the action is tolerable. I'd like lower action of course, but unless I recess the bridge (or remove more material from it, bad idea I think) I cant get no lower action (Mick Jagger eat your heart out). Either way if I bring the strings lower, the fretted notes on the low E tend to buzz, so I'm wondering why bother modifying the body or the bridge.

Could it be my truss rod could come to the rescue here? I measured the neck before stringing up, It remained dead flat (within about .001") After stringing, It has a bit of bow to it, and it has a nice amount of relief (about .008") I didnt think the truss rod needed to be adjusted.

I set the depth of the slots at the nut so that each string (bottom) was .020" from the top of the 1st fret. (thats just like my PRS) Because of the buzz on the low E, I'm wondering If I went a little too deep.

Even though it was not flawless by any stretch of the imagination, I am very pleased with how well it came out.

[LaXu]

If you can't find replacement C-clips you can use a piece of guitar string. I've done that with several saddles due to either losing the tiny C-clips or breaking them. As long as you lodge the string in there well it'll work. Kinda sucks that no-one in Finland sells tune-o-matic parts..you'd have to buy a whole new bridge.

[mu_sound]

If you can't find replacement C-clips you can use a piece of guitar string. I've done that with several saddles due to either losing the tiny C-clips or breaking them. As long as you lodge the string in there well it'll work. Kinda sucks that no-one in Finland sells tune-o-matic parts..you'd have to buy a whole new bridge.

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It truns out my local hardware store (the good one: Berg's Hardware) had the clips (they call them E clips but whatever) in two sizes that were close 7/64 & 3/32, At $0.10 each I took a dollars worth of each to make looking for the little buggers and writing out a reciept worthwhile. It turns out niether is quite right the fasteners must be metric. Strange seeing as they are made in the USA. The 7/64 clip slides on much easier so I'll go with those until they fall out.

The string trick sounds like a nice solution in a pinch! Thanks

Hey does anyone know the tradeoff between more height at the nut vs. more height at the bridge? My buzz is only happening on the low E sting between the 12th & 15th fret, everywhere else its fine. I dont think raising the low E side of the wraparound bridge would be a good idea since it would raise the action of the other strings with it. I was toying with the idea of putting in a new nut with a shallower E sting slot, but it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through if at the end it does not so what I want.

I've tinkered with shimming the low E by placing another string in the slot. When I put in a low E sting (.049") it felt horrible, the string definitely did not fall in line with the radius of the fretboard. A B string felt a lot better but I think it suffered acoustically from having only a tangent contact with the string. However, my buzz seemed to go away (this is a good buzz kill really!) in all but the 12th fret. Hmmm..perhaps I should check my fret flatness near the low E??? you think?

WOW! I checked the relief on the neck yesterday it was around .008" I rechecked it right now...it was over .020" wow, I guess thats the wood breaking in?? I tweaked my trus rod a quarter turn or so, its back down to .007" I'll check it again in a day or so..WOW! Well that seems to have alleviated my hum and gotten me much nicer action in one fell swoop.....will the miracles to newbies ever cease?

[brian d]

I'm glad for you that the truss adjustment fixed the problem...although I'm not quite sure how it did.

If the buzz was only from the 12th to 15th fret, chances are that it was not coming from too much relief of the rod.....the curve should be around the 7th fret. And then flattening it should bring the strings closer to the frets....so you may expect more buzzing. All else being equal, lower action means more buzzing. The art of set-up is in finding the correct balance.

I was going to write that it sounds like the problem is with the fret level....it can't be the nut if the buzz is not on the open string, it may be the bridge on the bass side (but you didn't want to raise the action any higher) and if there's already a highish action, then you don't want to add more relief to the neck by loosening the truss. That only leaves fret levelling.

Like I said, I don't understand how reducing relief got rid of the buzz....maybe one of the more experienced can explain it.....but I'm glad it did.

Cheers,

Brian.

[mu_sound]

I'm glad for you that the truss adjustment fixed the problem...although I'm not quite sure how it did. 

If the buzz was only from the 12th to 15th fret, chances are that it was not coming from too much relief of the rod.....the curve should be around the 7th fret.  And then flattening it should bring the strings closer to the frets....so you may expect more buzzing.  All else being equal, lower action means more buzzing.  The art of set-up is in finding the correct balance.

I was going to write that it sounds like the problem is with the fret level....it can't be the nut if the buzz is not on the open string, it may be the bridge on the bass side (but you didn't want to raise the action any higher) and if there's already a highish action, then you don't want to add more relief to the neck by loosening the truss.  That only leaves fret levelling.

Like I said, I don't understand how reducing relief got rid of the buzz....maybe one of the more experienced can explain it.....but I'm glad it did.

Cheers,

Brian.

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I think you are correct, the truss rod did not fix the buzz, perhaps I was just picking a bit lighter. I guess the big thing the truss adjustment fixed was the action. The low E still buzzes a bit from 12th through 15th. If you think the fret level is the issue I think I'll pursue that route, its easy enough re-dressing frets. Do I have to be careful not to lower them so much that fretting those notes will make them buzz worse?