grooving a BAII.

[bassninja7]

any tips?

just got it today, gunna put it on tomorrow, but its gotta get grooved.

my thought is to put the bridge on the bass. guide the strings in, but DONT wind(sp??) around the post, use a marker to mark where to groove.

then take it off and groove it.

[MRuss]

string it up to full tension, and note where the strings natural fall, then check this vs the center of the magnets, if there is variation, move the string to where it falls into a sweet spot between the magnets, then with a sharpie, mark the saddle on each side of the string. Do the same with all the strings. Now, take them off, get a file, and remove some material between the lines. Enough so that a string is seated. It's trial and error.

[202dy]

Once the bridge is mounted securely, string the guitar and tune to pitch. If the guitar has a bolt on neck, check to make sure that the neck is on straight by observing the margins on the neck outside the lowest and highest strings. If everything is right, mark the string slots.

Nut files are the best tools for completing this task.

If having the strings run straight from the breaking edge of the nut to the bridge, do not adjust the saddle slots for the pickups. Pickup location is dependent on the geometry of the instrument, not the other way around. In addition, the tolerance for locating the pickups is much larger than for neck alignment.

[lethargytartare]

Do you folks file the slot parallel to the plane of the body (or, perfectly horizontal), or pitched slightly to the tail? When you're filing nut slots, for pitched headstocks you file the nut slots slightly pitched to the headstock side; for fender style headstocks, you file the slots parallel to the plane of the fretboard. I haven't much discussion of that aspect of filing the slots in a BA bridge.

[202dy]

Originally Posted by lethargytartare

Do you folks file the slot parallel to the plane of the body (or, perfectly horizontal), or pitched slightly to the tail? When you're filing nut slots, for pitched headstocks you file the nut slots slightly pitched to the headstock side; for fender style headstocks, you file the slots parallel to the plane of the fretboard. I haven't much discussion of that aspect of filing the slots in a BA bridge.

The saddle groove should be ramped toward the tailpiece. If it is filed parallel to the body there can be two witness points, one at the headstock side and one at the tailpiece side of the saddle. That can cause a hump in the string and less contact with the saddle. Care must be taken to get the angle of the ramp correct. Too much down angle will cause eliminate contact with the saddle except at the headstock end.