Bridge work to lower action?

[basss]

I would like to lower my action a bit. My bridge adjusters are all the way down so I'm thinking I need to modify the bridge a bit. If I sand a millimeter or so off of the legs of the bridge just above the adjusters will this do the trick? It seems like it would be easy enough to do myself without fussing with a luthier unless I'm over looking something. What do you think?

[Chasarms]

I did it on my old Engelhardt. The only real risk is getting the surfaces of the two legs out of alignment so wheels aren't flush to the bridge or they get in a bind.

If you could rig up some sort of jig or something to make sure you keep the surfaces on a single plane, I think you'd be OK.

If you have a big bench vise around it works perfect. That's what I used. I just turned the bridge upside down in the vise and allowed about 1/16" or so extrude from the vise on top. About 30 seconds with the belt sander and that sixteenth was gone.

[basss]

Just did it. Worked like a charm. The upper registers are much more accessible. Thanks for your help

[Bob Branstetter]

A word of caution for others thinking about doing this procedure. If you wish to remove wood from the bridge legs on the threaded side of the adjuster, be sure to measure the depth of the threads in the bridge BEFORE you start sanding/cutting. If you have the usual 1/4" x 20tpi aluminum adjusters, you can use a 1/4" x 20 tpi bolt (longer than your adjuster threads) to measure the depth. If the bolt will not screw down further than the length of your adjuster threads PLUS how much you want to remove (on both sides) it won't work. Oh BTW - That's finger tight with the bolt - don't use your handy dandy wrench to tighten it unless you feel like fitting a new bridge.