custom string spacing on a vintage style bridge - Thank you Hipshot

[raal]

For all those who want custom string spacing on a vintage style bridge and bass, it can be done.

The solution consists of machining the grooves in the saddles at various locations according to the string spacing intended for each string. First off make sure that the neck is wide enough for if you want more spacing. This proved helpful for me in the lower register as the thick low B and low E tend to reduce the effective string spacing to 16.5 mm on a bridge with 19 mm center line pitch.

Thanks to the folks at Hipshot products, you can submit handsketches of what you want and they will pretty much machine the saddles to your spec at the cost of less than $10 per saddle. I find it great that a standard guitar hardware component company takes the time and the effort to make sure your needs are met as a player.

This turned to be well worth the expense as the playability was greatly increased.

[walterw]

that is interesting that they will customize like that (especially the vaguely lakland-esque oval shape).

i suppose you could also just get un-grooved brass saddles and file your own notches into them to get spacing just right.

an easy solution is to just get a proper fender vintage bridge, with the threaded-rod saddles, so you could space the strings wherever you needed them to be.

[raal]

The bridges you see are made by Hipshot for Celinder basses. I guess they supply luthiers that want their own bend plate design for a vintage look.

The goal being to minimize alterations to the bass from its original design, going directly to Hipshot helped in making sure the intonation threads were matching with what's already on the bass.

Anyway it's too bad that adjustable spacing available in older fender bridges was not carried further. Maybe there's a concern that with thick low B, the saddle grooves are not deep enough to keep the string in place?