Info on Bridge Blank

[Fletcher Lanning]

A customer at the office I work at was talking to me about how he used to play bass years ago, etc. and I come back from lunch a couple of days later and find a bridge blank with two brass adjusters laying next to it on my desk. He left a not with someone else that said he found them laying in with some tools of his and he hoped I could make use of it.

I've only been playing for a couple years and my old Kay still has the bridge it had on when I picked it up (albiet with a good deal of alteration to the curve and adjusters put in by my luthier). How do I know if this bridge blank is worth holding on to and should I think about replacing the very old bridge on it?

It looks like a fine bridge but I don't know what to look for.

[kurt ratering]

post a pic if you can

[Fletcher Lanning]

bridge 2 by Flanning85, on Flickr

bridge 3 by Flanning85, on Flickr

[Fletcher Lanning]

bridge 1 by Flanning85, on Flickr

[forester]

looks brand scuffin'new..
if it is sized to your bass, you have scored.

[Eric Hochberg]

It has those curvy wing slots, so if you use a wing pickup there will be more work to do. Talk to your luthier to see if it's the correct size for your bass and if it would be an improvement over your current bridge. It is possible the sound will change in some way.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Fletcher Lanning

A customer at the office I work at was talking to me about how he used to play bass years ago, etc. and I come back from lunch a couple of days later and find a bridge blank with two brass adjusters laying next to it on my desk. He left a not with someone else that said he found them laying in with some tools of his and he hoped I could make use of it.

I've only been playing for a couple years and my old Kay still has the bridge it had on when I picked it up (albiet with a good deal of alteration to the curve and adjusters put in by my luthier). How do I know if this bridge blank is worth holding on to and should I think about replacing the very old bridge on it?

It looks like a fine bridge but I don't know what to look for.

It looks like a good blank. To fit a blank to a bass is a lot of work and requires a lot of skill. The blank you start with is a pretty small part of the expense involved. Unless there's something wrong with your current bridge I would leave it alone.

[iiipopes]

But if it is the right size, you have a great spare in case the untowards happens.

[Nagrom]

Where I live that's a $200 part.

[michaeln]

Where I live that's a part that a luthier will charge me $300 to install.

[Don Higdon]

Whether or not the bridge is right for your bass depends on the location of the bass bar vis a vis the E foot. That's a luthier's job.
Quality bridges are available at nowhere near $200 at International Violin in Baltimore.

[PaulCannon]

Bridge blanks have a pretty wide price range. The shop I worked at had a crate of very poor quality bridges which I'm sure we would have given away, and some others which were maybe 20 or 30 dollars. A high grade Despiau (the "three tree") would have been $200+ for the blank, and more still to install.

I don't know enough to identify the OP's bridge, but it does resemble some of the cheaper bridges we stocked.