Ibanez artcore afs75t bridge in wrong position

[tomas.velasquez]

Hello, i made a huge mistake and took the guitar strings without marking where the bridge was. I changed the strings and tried to set up the bridge, but when i play the guitar, the strings come out of the rollers.

Does someone have advice on this matter?

Thanks,

Tomás.

The strings are .10 to .52

[ADFinlayson]

Is the bridge not fixed to the body?  If it's not, strings popping out of the saddles would indicate that there is not enough break angle over the bridge from the trem, could mean the bridge is too far forward, it certainly looks like the bass side of the bridge is forward, they're normally back from the treble side by 2mm or so at an angle, your bridge looks like it's closer to the pickup on the bass side than the treble side.

I would start by checking the intonation to work out the correct bridge and saddle position

[curtisa]

Google images returns loads of results that suggest that you have the bridge in roughly the right position. If the bridge is completely moveable once the strings are removed, it might be possible to see a slight 'shadow' on the guitar top where the exact location of the bridge is meant to be, which would help you re-align it to its original location.

Did the bridge always have a tendency for the strings to pop out of the roller saddles while playing?

 

13 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Also, could you wrap the strings so they go under the tremelo instead of over, that would increase the angle and string pull over the bridge.

But it would also mean that the trem arm would work back-to-front (depressing the arm would make the strings rise in pitch).

[ADFinlayson]

14 minutes ago, curtisa said:

But it would also mean that the trem arm would work back-to-front (depressing the arm would make the strings rise in pitch).

yeah I realised that after a double take of the bridge design as that would only work on the bigsby style bridge which a lot of artcores seem to have. So I removed that part from my post.

[curtisa]

Bazinga!

[mistermikev]

probably not a big deal... you just need to intonnate it.  If you have a really accurate tuner (really should be strobe quality).  my advice would be, once you have it intonnated, mark it with something temporary, and get some 3m double sided tape (the really weak stuff) and apply to prevent rocking/movement going fwd.  A gibson tech did this to my es295 for me and while a purist might say it is a barrier to tone... a lot of pros with archtop bridges do this.

[Bizman62]

Based on the images on the link @curtisa sent the bridge seems to be in the ballpark and also the right way, the adjusting screws facing the neck. As @ADFinlayson said, the break angle isn't sufficient, it looks like the strings are level all the way to the tremolo beam.

Is the action lower than it used to be, i,e. did you lower the bridge? Adjusting the height should address that issue. If not, read forward.

It's not obvious on your photo, but it looks like the tremolo body is a little off the top, floating like a trapeze tailpiece. The "shoulders" of the tremolo should sit tight on the body. 

[mistermikev]

doh, missed the part about strings popping out.  as the good advice given... you'd have to somehow lower the trem assembly... perhaps check that you have the spring in there correctly or if something is pushing it away from the body.

[tomas.velasquez]

[tomas.velasquez]

Sorry for the late reply, just noticed that i had a response, first of all thanks for all of the responses, you are amazing.

I uploaded another picture so you can see the angle of the strings at the bridge, Something worth mentioning is that the plastic that comes bellow the bridge when it comes from the fabric was there before i changed the strings. It was pretty thick so that might be part of the issue.

I did adjust the height on the bridge to try and compensate, but the action became way to big.

 

@mistermikev your idea of the spring not being in the right position might be a good consideration, i will try to move it and see if the trem assembly lowers. Actually just saw a reference image and noticed that the spring is way off, that must be it.

 

@Bizman62 Thanks bizman for noticing that the tremolo body was off the top.

 

[mistermikev]

hehe "what do I win?"

-a fir lined bathtub?  looking at it... looks like the spring might be sitting up on the edge... perhaps not seated.  hope it's that simple. 

[curtisa]

I think the problem is that the spring is in the wrong position.

It looks like the spring should be between the metal baseplate of the tremolo and the underside of tremolo arm. At the moment you have the spring underneath the bridge, which is pushing it up and away from the body. This makes the strings sit far too high behind the bridge and will be why the strings want to pop out of the saddles.

Edit: nevermind, already mentioned by someone else further up.