Drak

So I made a new 'spray shield' last night for this job. Here is a pic of all my spray shields I've made over the years. The new one is obviously the white one in the middle. Its primary purpose is to protect the center and keep the center light and bright and protect it from overspray when doing the outer 'bits'. I don't always use them, just depends on the job at hand. I seriously cannot spray a round circle (unaided, by eye alone) if my very life depended on it. I would die a horrific and tragic death if I had to depend on shooting a round circle unaided. They're not a crutch, you still have to blend everything together after its removed, but they help me when I need them. And they keep the center section from becoming too dark from accidental overspray, which I've done many times and become very pissed off at.

^ Absolutely true dat.

The way I do it, I couldn't do that since its all lacquer, if I tried to wipe anything off with thinner, the whole entire job would come off. Sanding shader coats off is actually pretty easy since they're so thin usually, IME. Its gotta be totally level sanded tho, if you have dips and bumps in it, that makes recovery harder. So take care of that on the front end by making sure its all nice and level sanded before any shader coats go on.

I always do lacquer (sprayed). You can get aerosol cans of it. BLO and Tru-Oil takes too long, too many coats to build, and are both OIL finishes, which don't get along well with nearly anything else. If you're asking me, I'd recommend aerosol lacquer spray bombs w/o question.

To give you another example from my own files of this same technique. This is a Spalted Maple (top and back) job. I have yet to put this thing together, its been done for 3-4 years, haha! This was done basically the same way that green one I posted was. Clearcoat to level-sand, very light shader coats on whole thing, with an edge-burst. Those two aren't mine, this one is.

Absolutely practice on scrap, I do, to this very day. And I have made hundreds of mistakes I've had to go back and fix, and I hate it as much now as I ever did in the early years. So from those experiences, there is good news for a fallback strategy doing it this way. If you do the method of clearcoating the body, then level-sanding, then applying a shader coat (even if its just an edgeburst) You can always sand back to your clearcoat start point for recovery, you don't have to sand everything back to raw wood. As long as you know how to gently sand back a finish, and shader coats are generally very thin and very light anyway. So its really not that hard to sand it all off and go right back to your clearcoat recovery point. W/o all the work of having to go back to dead-stop zero raw wood again. The basecoat clearcoats are a 'hold space', or a 'page marker', if you follow. Also, another lesson I've learned the hard way...Once you touch that wood with a cloth dipped in dye, there is rarely an easy recovery point. Sanding a guitar back to raw, clean wood after you've dyed it is never fun or easy, if you get it clean again at all. That is why I still practice on scrap first, I've learned the hard way once I touch that pretty raw wood with dye, there's no 100% recovery, or usually not an easy one. I certainly do a lot of straight-to-raw-wood dye finishes, I actually prefer them for the right job. I'm just sure before I touch it with dye that its what I want, no guessing at it, its too much time spent in recovery. I hate doing that, and I'm super-picky, I never settle for 'just OK'. If it doesn't blow my mind, it gets the axe or it gets fixed. And I really detest time wasted fixing mistakes. The goal is to spend more time moving and advancing forward and enjoying the build than time spent in recovery going backwards to fix mistakes. So you take care of that as much as you possibly can on the Front End, by testing on scrap and having fallback points, its all strategy and strategic thinking.

I don't know, interesting question. Maybe they were approached by a middleman wholesale jobber builder who built the lower lines for them (that is a very popular method and still employed to this very day) and Hopf slapped their name on it, while keeping their personal A-Team of luthiers producing their own authentic upper-tier instruments. That practice is widespread across the globe and across time. Japan's Matsumoku factory, for example, jobbed out guitars to Dozens of different companies who then slapped their name on it, but at heart, its a Matsumoku build. Price is always the telltale sign because the difference is not small, you can always tell mass-produced from custom-built, even today the gap is wide between the two. So you look at the retail cost of a Saturn back in the day and compare that to Hopf's nearby competitors offerings of the same class, it will immediately tell you what was handmade and what was mass-produced.

So this is what I've got, since you allowed my mind to wander and choose whatever it wanted. These are two different treatments done to a Black Limba body. Depending on the piece, Black Limba can stand on its own, or sometimes it can use a little help to set it off. I see your piece as that, attractive, but could use some help, tho I would not cover it up with a solid black. Its attractive enough to keep it cleared and show it off. One is a natural clearcoat with a black edgeburst, the other a beautiful green shader coat. Both are applied after the body has been clearcoated and sanded level, then the toners are shot over top of that, then more clear. Neither of these are done straight onto the wood, they are done over a cleared and sanded finish, then more clear to lock it in. If that body were mine, that is what I would do with it. You can clearly see the Black Limba wood in both examples, yet you can also see the added effects really helped set the piece off. Its a nice way to keep the natural look of the wood, yet color it to taste. You can dye straight onto the wood to augment both of these effects before you add them, but its really, really light. Say, you were going to do a black edgeburst but wanted to dye the body to match it. I would use a Silver Gray dye mixed WAAY down, like 10%, 15% max. Like a super-diluted washcoat, nothing more. If you go too far, you ruin the effect, these are all very light and delicate treatments, nothing heavy-handed. In this way you are keeping the natural look of the wood itself. If you use a heavy-handed dye right onto the wood, you'll take away the natural look. Unless that's exactly what you're looking for in the first place, just straight-up dying the wood although with that piece, it would not be my first choice. If you are prepared to do a faux binding job (I wouldn't, but I'm not you), then you are already prepared to do shader coats, as both require the body to be clearcoated first. The procedures share a lot of the same steps in the process is all I'm saying, so if you're prepared to do one, you can choose to do the other too as both require similar equipment and techniques. That's what I got. Natural Black Limba with black edgeburst: Natural Black Limba with Green edgeburst/shader coat:

Mmmm...yes and no. It does have some movement, but as I said, it's not a high-bling piece, so not a massive solar refractory chatoyance experience thing. I would believe by the time I'm done with it it should be reasonably attractive tho. So next stage is finding the colors I need based on what I see in the pic. I started testing some browns on scrap and found a massive hit. I tend to keep all the 'cowboy sunset' colors up front, simply because I tend to use them more often. But I have many, many colors in many packages, some that I have never even used in all these years. So I was looking for all the browns that I never use, which generally means 'real' browns, not varieties of red-tinged browns that I tend to gravitate towards. And I found a water-soluble powder, a small bottle of Transfast Extra Dark Walnut, that Blew The Doors off of My Mind. I cannot believe I've never discovered this gem of a brown sitting in my dye box, it is Magnificent! Like walking through a forest in the evening, at dusk, when everything is growing darker yet you can still see around you. Simply Gorgeous, dark, rich, deep brown, the Brown of The Forest Gods, oh yes! I'm guessing the secondary color is primarily yellow, tinted with another, lighter brown to a tan or gold thing. I'll suss that one out tomorrow. I'm nearly there now. I've found the look I want, I've identified the particulars of the colors and the application, and I've hunted down the colors in my dye box (mostly). Only thing left to do is ID the secondary color, then do a dry run shoot on a scrap piece of Maple (I have tons of small cutoff pieces of figured Maple). I also hunted down a piece of flamed Maple veneer for the headstock which I need to get applied so I can do the body and headstock at the same time to make sure they match, since I'm custom-mixing colors. This extra dark Walnut is really blowing my mind, it very well may be my primary go-to brown from now on.

So, to cut to the chase, I decided on the yellow-ish one in the middle. The figuring on that is completely different than mine, but so what, I LOVE the color scheme. Totally rocks my world, and I need that, it has to completely knock me off my chair. So, I notice that center section looks an awful lot like one I already did, my Rising Sun Tele. Notice the similarity of the center sections. So I've got that one piece of the puzzle covered, I know how to get 'there' at least that section. Just gotta cut out all the other cowboy sunset colors involving red and focus on the brown.

So I started my usual pre-burst process. I gather about 50 pics of the kind of burst I want to do, a general collection. Then I start sorting them out into file piles, It is absolutely imperative to me to find the ones I don't want and answer 'why not that'. Because I chose them as possible contenders to begin with, so what took them out of play? Too this, too that, not enough this, OK, but I would quickly get bored with it etc. The crucial first step in narrowing down what I want as it helps my brain start to really energize and zero in on the target. Then I collect the number of ones that made the cut and start whittling it down until I have my answer, 'the one'. Or the closest rendition to 'the one' I can find. The one that literally freaks me out I love it so much, I'm always looking for that emotional 'jolt' that says HELL YES, THAT! If it doesn't excite me to that level, it's not worth the time pursuing it. It's really gotta move me in a big way. Then I stare at it for quite awhile discerning the exact colors (and I seriously do mean exact), how they blended it, how much sandback (a lot or a little), how pale or deep the colors are, all the very particular information. The whole time my brain is getting on board during all this scrutiny, it's analyzing and processing so it knows where I want to go. Last night I Googled PRS Private Stock and downloaded a ton of pics, although I already have, probably thousands, its always fun to see new stuff. So, when I do this, it's not about anything other than a color scheme, that's it. No ogling pretty guitars, its not about that. A particular guitar means nothing to me since all figuring is different, all woods are different, and the basic wood coloring itself is different for every single piece. So its not about copying, since you can't. It's about color schemes and combinations. Is it just one color? Is there a sandback color? Edge color? Did they shoot it over finish or does it look like it's all on the wood? I look for all of this information and compile it. When I go into a burst, I'm not guessing or fooling around, I've done my homework long before I pick up a cloth or spray gun. On the multicolored Prism PRS, it's literally the very very tip edge of the upper horn, that's all I'm looking at, but that color is in the ballpark. Here are a few that made the short list besides the one I already posted, so you can see the range I'm looking at.

Ahh, it gets so interesting now. The bigger picture now starts to come into play, which is why I find guitar history so fascinating. Again, no expert, but I'm reasonably certain the same reason the US and related nations won World War II is the very same reason the US and related nations steamrolled Europe in guitar production. They won the war, their geography and populations (speaking more to US) were left nearly untouched in comparison. They had winning and repeatable assembly-line techniques that were developed during the war effort, they had massive populations that were ready to work and buy a house (probably for the first time) and enjoy 'the good life'. Capitalism and commerce were ready to overtake the entire world at large after the war. And the US was a powerhouse for all of that. They had the power, they were the Boss, they had the control, they had everything in place, they lost no factories or natural resources, it was all systems GO, and that they did. Until Japan recovered and really started pushing the envelope, they wanted a piece of that commerce (goods and services) pie, and that means production of goods, open trade and commerce agreements. Flow. Things have to flow. Produce product and let it flow out into the world for consumption by the masses. And for a time after the war, the US had an unbelievable advantage over nearly everyone else.

(Sorry Biz, I'm a post behind you!) OK, do the math on that. Pretend you are the business owner and are responsible for keeping a company afloat and profitable, hiring, and moving forward. Price out that 'thick slab' of real Spruce that you are going to carve most of it away at competitive, consumer-grade prices. Time, labor, dead-solid repeatable results every time, and done very quickly, with every one being hand carved, lots of time then. No room for wasted time or effort. Are you using your A-Team high-paid luthier staff to do that work? Or are you using your semi-unskilled assembly-line production team (the regular guys) to do that work? This is your labor, minimum wage earners vs. top shelf luthiers, there is a big difference there. Compare that price of an actual piece of real Spruce lumber to easily attainable and cheap sheet goods stock (laminated plywood sheets). That can be quickly and easily be heat-pressed into form. This is your materials, and also, a big difference in between real lumber and sheet goods. Then do that a thousand times over and do a cost evaluation summary. Knowing you have to keep a company and your own family, and your mortgage, afloat. Let me know how you would proceed with the stress and pressure to realize a steady profit works for you.

I liked your comment about Spruce being easily attainable in Europe, true fact dat. Just as Gibson used to source its Eastern hardrock Maple from Virginia when they were located in Tennessee, same basic business principle at work. So yes, those types of facts are very important to commerce decisions and do indeed come into play. As well, I worked in several fabrication shops in my 20's, metal and plastics. In the case of plastics, one side of the shop was mass-production (with vacuum heat presses, just like lammy tops more or less) The other side of the shop was purely artistic creations, staffed with technical artisans, that created one-offs and went for soaring prices. Same company, two completely different applications for what is basically the same basic material, plastic, Just as with some guitar companies, like Fender's regular production and their Custom Shop. Gibson has much the same thing over the years, everyone had real luthiers on staff, but the prices for their services were always separated by a wide margin from the mass-produced stuff. So you can tell a lot simply by the price, its that simple when you can tie price to high-quality skilled labor, which it generally usually is. Hopf, I'm pretty sure, had the same thing, mass production alongside real luthiers making real archtops. Their history started out with real luthiers making real authentic guitars. But they added on a mass-production component, and many of these companies 'jobbed out' the lower lines and just stuck their name on it. Same company, two very different products, with two very different price tags. Anything experimental would have a similar price tag, very expensive. America, Europe, and Japan (later), then Korea, the list goes on. They all used basically the same format and materials unless you got to the artisan custom one-off stage. But at that point, the price goes up ten-fold. Veneered laminated pressed plywood is cheap, easily attainable, and extremely dependable. Those inexpensive-to-produce guitars were made in the hundreds of thousands and most are still holding up and going strong. So I would toss that back at you, why would anyone rock the boat and try something experimental when they already had a dependable reliable economical process already tested, tried, and stable? From a business standpoint, it just doesn't make any sense at all. As a one-off small-time builder, you can try anything, but a business depends on reliable income and reliable, repeatable sales. That means repeatable, guaranteed assembly-line (the repeatable part) results with very few defects or returns, because reputation is also King (for sales purposes). That keeps people employed with a steady job. Remember, Context is King, the assembly line process came out of the World Wars and military production techniques. They took all those resources and what they learned and applied them to post-war production where it was now free trade (to an extent) and competition for profit. And a lot of countries were still trying to recover from the damage war had induced on their populations, their geography, and their worth as a nation or country. Stability, everyone was trying to stabilize their economies and gain wealth back again. There are lots of pics available (at least there used to be) of all these guitar shops where you can easily see the assembly line production in action. And those pictures are very reminiscent of World War assembly line pics, and for obvious reasons!

So, I love guitar history and have studied a lot of it. Its absolutely fascinating. I'm no expert by a long shot, but I can find my way in through the in door and out through the out door OK enough most days. You have to broaden your mind and open your focus range to really 'see' the whole puzzle, so a singular puzzle piece you may be looking at has proper context. You can see where it fits, how it fits, and why. Then everything begins to make sense, then the history of a guitar as a product of its maker has some context to it, and context is King. Looking at a single puzzle piece without looking at the whole picture of the puzzle is misleading and lead to many false assumptions, where the subject adds color and flavor to suit his/her own emotional wants or needs. In other words, they have an emotional attachment to the thing and very few facts, so their view becomes very skewed and inaccurate based on what they 'prefer' to see. This can lead to grabbing at any shard of information the web provides you as 'truth', to support whatever you want to be true, when everyone knows the web is brimming full of inaccuracies. When you add in all the surrounding metadata, the facts begin to appear and the real story springs to life. Most people will look at a guitar and no further than that, and that is an extremely narrow focus which doesn't yield much info and a lot of guessing with very little (to sometimes none) context to back up the guesswork. Basically, that is shooting completely blind. I will go further, and state that even the owners of many of these vintage guitars and websites have no clue about guitar building, they've never built a guitar themselves, they're more likely nostalgia buffs than real guitar construction buffs. You have to look at the time in history they were produced, what was going on in the world at that time, and what the local business competitors were doing. Anyone who is in business knows the nearest competition will always color your marketing strategies, with very, very few exceptions. If you don't consider your nearby competition, you will very soon have no business, no products, and no history, and no home, more than likely, because you no longer have a business. That gives you a rich, colorful context which can lead to reasonable and intelligent conclusions. You may still be wrong since you are 'coming to conclusions', but your chances of being right go up astronomically when you add in the historical, business, and social context of the times for that puzzle piece. The 'surrounding metadata' call it. And that is why studying guitar history is so much fun, it adds all the color, all the metadata, all the context, to form a colorful story and fill in the other puzzle pieces. So you get to see your puzzle piece in context of the entire puzzle. That is a hella lot of fun. When discussing guitar nomenclature online over the decades, I find 70% of posters have no clue whatsoever how to look at a guitar as nothing more than a product of a business model to make profit, pay employees, and raise a family. In the Big Picture, its just a 'thing', no more than that. They look at a guitar in strict isolation of all the metadata surrounding the guitar. Usually they have it pedestalized on some sort of golden stand in their own mind, and sometimes actually want to avoid facts as facts will destroy the golden pedestal they have themselves built and worshipped at. You look at the surrounding circumstances, the 'available surrounding metadata', the economy, the business models employed by these companies to make a profit and pay their employees so they keep returning to work another day (for you). Then you begin to have some context for that single puzzle piece. Without that, barring having the thing in-hand, you have very little to go on sometimes. So, having said all that, to come to a reasonable conclusion about the Hopf Saturn, minus anyone ripping one apart, you look at the surrounding metadata and stop reading web inaccuracies spouted by people who may very well be ignorant of guitar history or guitar construction basics or how a business runs and makes a profit to stay in business to even have a history to discuss. I will lay out some Basic Guitarbuilding Facts: In every picture I've seen of a Saturn, there is no hint of bracing, none. Laminated, veneered, pressed plywood tops and backs don't need bracing. The criss-cross of the plywood is where it gains its strength, and holds its shape, and is ridiculously economical (means lower price, means profitable). You make no profit, you have no history, because you have no business anymore. No quality builder that I'm aware of would cut a big gaping hole for electronics in a real carved (=arched, =braced) Spruce top. It would run completely against the time and labor it takes to build the archtop in the first place. It would defeat the entire purpose of building a sonically resonant arched top in the first place, ask any archtop builder. In a business model, that is going backwards, and in a hurry. In a mass-production, profit-driven environment, it is a waste of time and labor. No company that wants to stay in business would ever do such a thing. No quality builder that I'm aware of would put a stress-inducing (and eventually destroying) tremolo with its downward-pressure bridge system on a top that couldn't support it. Laminated, veneered, pressed plywood tops are built to do exactly that, and economically too. It takes very little time and labor to produce a lammy top when you have the equipment. And at the time, EVERYONE had the equipment. America, Europe, Japan, they all did it, because it was fast, easy, and profitable. If you find a real arched and carved and braced top, you will also find an appropriate pricetag to go along with it, because the time and labor to produce it is ten times the amount of labor it takes to produce a pressed lammy top. So ten times the price, that is basic economics at work. So, I recommend stop pedestalizing guitars on golden pedestals and start looking at business models and what creates profit and what doesn't, that's where you find your answers, that's how the puzzle begins to come together to make a real story, and the real story is usually so much more colorful that an imagined one. Thoughts and opinions always welcome.

Not true, I'm not basing that solely on my Ovation at all. I'm basing that on common sense, typical manufacturing scenarios, price range, availability, and production numbers for the time period. It's an economics thing, it's a business thing, it's a standard issue consumer grade commerce item, not a custom build. It just happens that my Ovations fall into that same class of consumer grade items. Which actually helps prove the point. Same deal. The (Ovation) bodies were a mass-produced item, just like Hopf's Saturns and others. Mass-produced consumer item guitars (for the time period) got pressed plywood tops, sides, and backs, simple. I've had Hoyers, Hofners, and a stray something or other (can't remember what it was) German job, all the exact same build characteristics.

Ha! I looked up the Jazzguitarren site and read the info on the Saturn. Wrong. This is ridiculous BS, ...but I forgive them, I've learned a hella lot about German builds from that site over the years. Construction-wise, it looks absolutely 100% identical to my Ovations. Spruce veneered pressed plywood tops, Flame Maple veneered pressed plywood backs and sides. It's a typical, mundane, economical factory build that they pumped out by the hundreds, or thousands, I don't know. Real solid (carved, handmade) Spruce tops only go on very high end custom (which means very expensive) guitars, and are made in small numbers. Just goes to show you can't believe everything the web tells you as truth. Here's a link to a single pickup: Hopf Pickup

The same kind of favors have been cast my way in the past, I'm just passing them forward, as the saying goes. No worries.

Doesn't get much better than this, brand new mint NOS 50 year old parts, I love it! Even has the snap-on cover, which is pretty hard to come by. It's yours, on the house, as they say.

Thank You for posting the link, beautiful work, Bravo! Now I have a footing with you, so thank you very much or that, it helps me a lot. So, you're not going to believe this, and it is a strange, small world we live in sometimes. I do not have the bridge from the third body. The body itself was trashed, but nearly every part on it was in gorgeous shape and all of the hardware got used on the other two. That's the primary reason I bought it, for all the hardware and the neck, everything except the body was in beautiful shape, and it was all gold hardware, which is what I use primarily, and I got a rock-bottom deal on it since the body was in bad shape, it definitely affects the selling price. So I got nearly an entire guitars' worth of hardware and a neck in perfect shape for an astounding bargain. But, that's how I roll, I'm always on the lookout for deals like that. But the story gets way better for you. I bought a mint new NOS bridge, just like the others (so just like yours) but a chrome one, tho I never use chrome parts, To be honest, I'm not really sure why I even bought it, many years ago. And since I have completed both of mine and am pleased as pudding with them, I have no need of this new NOS chrome bridge. You can have it, no charge, as I don't believe parts in a drawer do anyone any good. These things must go on working guitars to make music on, their destiny is to not sit in a drawer. So, It never hurts to ask! I'll dig it up and post a pic of it here, you can send me your address and I'll ship it off to you.

One more thing...if you're going to make it a solidbody, than you can put any scale neck you want to on it. At that point, you basically have a Fender Jazzmaster or something, not a Hopf hollow. Most of those guitars had 24.5" scale necks. Not 24 3/4" Gibson, but 24.5". And they sound absolutely divine like that, I would never consider putting a 25.5" neck on one of my Ovations. It makes a difference if you're doing any sort of hollowbody config.

None of this below is meant in any kind of negative way. It is meant to get you on track to building a quality guitar. To do that, you need to start setting your own parameters, not chasing down every detail of a 50 year old guitar, unless you really seriously have the current chops to pull it off. I mean, what can you do, seriously? You showed a pic of an X-braced archtop, can you build an X-braced archtop for real? I don't know, and I need that kind of feedback from you to help me help you the best way I can. Show me some current work so I can get a gauge on your skills. Right now, I have no idea what you can do and can't do. What I would recommend you do is to start making a few decisions for yourself and get some feet planted firmly on the Earth. What I mean by that is to stop chasing all the particulars (letting the build lead you by the nose, where you are not in control) And just build what is within your grasp to do professionally (make the guitar what you want it to be and what is within your means). This is how you Take Control of your situation and your build, and if you're building it, you need to take control of it. So, chances are it has the same basic guts/build as my Ovation Thunderheads, which originated from imported German bodies (could be Schaller, could be Hofner, there are debates on the topic out there) from roughly the same time frame. Roughly. What I saw when I looked up the Saturn looks close enough to me to probably be the same thing. The reason I say this with at least a little confidence is the bridge is nearly Identical to my Ovations. Close enough for me to say 'same for same'. You'll never, ever see anywhere else what I'm going to show you, as I'm the only one I've ever known that's ripped one apart and taken pics of the autopsy. I can't believe I was so stupid as to only take one shot of the corpse ripped apart, I should have taken many more, but whatever, at least there's one. I bought three in various conditions to make two excellent ones,, this is the body from the third, which was toast. So, to get to your question...It is neither a true braced archtop nor does it have a centerblock, now what are your plans knowing that? Do you see what I mean? Chasing shadows will waste your time and confuse you and send the build into the 'not fun' space. Just make the call that is Best For You. Centerblock, great. Do it. See how easy that is? Make your own calls, it will hold you in good stead in the course of a build. So what it probably has is what I call (my term, because there is no other term for it) is a modified poor man's ladder brace system under a pressed plywood arched top. In my case it's pressed plywood under a Spruce veneer. Basically it's like a poor man's archtop (or...cheap and affordable) ladder brace system. And I've never come across anything quite like it anywhere else. You can search the web all day long and never find the pics I'm showing you right here. Because I searched, and I never could find anything...for years and years, as these guitars are a pet love of mine...so I ripped the bastid apart! It's pretty much a German thing, I've never seen it in any American build, anywhere. So if you want to have a go at it, it, here it is, but if it were me, I would pick what I can build, within my reasonable means. This is a pic of your Hopf bridge, which is 95% identical to my Ovations...maybe 98% identical...which means same manufacturer, which means, very close. And I can see the wood grain under the paint which ALSO looks 98% identical to my Ovations.

The best thing to do to put this to bed is to call Becky or Shannon at Wilde Pickups directly. Their phone number is easy to find and if you get the answer you need you can order it right then and there on the phone. I've talked to both of them occasionally over the years, they're both reasonably helpful and nice people to deal with. There is a forum dedicated to Lawrence, but typing and waiting for answers (to me) is the slow path to answers. When I want answers and a phone number is available, I always call the person, 1000 times more effective usually. YouTube Q-Filter on Tele Wilde Pickups YouTube Channel Wilde-Gate Forum

So here's a pic of it from yesterday, it's a bit more cleaned up now, almost ready. I think the quilt will be great for what I have in mind, its not a super-bling piece, but kind of nice and calm quilting.

I have both Tele type of bridges, the big long heavy Gotoh jobs, and many Glendales which I more normally use. I will tell you, yes there is a difference in length, but there's no difference between the ferrule holes and the pickup cutout. In other words, you can take one off and slap the other one right down in its place (which I have done before), no problems. Following your logic, they would not be interchangable, yet they are indeed interchangable. So, I don't think there's any additional room between pickup and saddles, they're the same as far as actual footprint goes. MAYBE a little more saddle travel on the big flat brass Gotoh bridges, maybe a little more.