Raising String Height (a little bit)

[Roger Davis]

I need to raise the string height on one of my basses by 2mm and I haven't got an adjustable bridge on it. One trick is to detune and slide the bridge towards the fingerboard. That will, of course, put the bridge out of its optimum position relative to the sound post. So why not slide some deformable material between the bass surface and underside of the bridge foot to shim up to the desirable height? The material needs to be of reasonable high density to be acoustically efficient. I was in a hobby shop today and found a blank printed circuit board which was suitably flexible (just about). It was made of laminated plastic with a perforated copper surface. So I'm going to cut it to size and slide it in, just like a thick Realist pickup, under each foot and see what happens.

No doubt the purists will be horrified but it should be ok for a working musician.

[Jake deVilliers]

Why not just use a couple of pieces of maple veneer? It will work similarly to the phenolic but sound like wood.

[KSB - Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Roger Davis

I need to raise the string height on one of my basses by 2mm and I haven't got an adjustable bridge on it. One trick is to detune and slide the bridge towards the fingerboard. That will, of course, put the bridge out of its optimum position relative to the sound post. So why not slide some deformable material between the bass surface and underside of the bridge foot to shim up to the desirable height? The material needs to be of reasonable high density to be acoustically efficient. I was in a hobby shop today and found a blank printed circuit board which was suitably flexible (just about). It was made of laminated plastic with a perforated copper surface. So I'm going to cut it to size and slide it in, just like a thick Realist pickup, under each foot and see what happens.

No doubt the purists will be horrified but it should be ok for a working musician.

Use maple veneer if you can get it. Use the Strings on the Bridge as a clamp for pressure. Use some mild glue, protect your Bass, Glue the shims on slightly oversized. When the glue sets, take off the Bridge, trip the excess and then set it up again. Try to match the grain direction of the wood shims which is cross the grain of the top. This is a temp fix only!

[robobass]

How many of you have seen buskers on the streets of European cities with big gobs of cardboard under their bridges? Oh the horror!
Robobass

[Roger Davis]

Thanks guys for your helpful advice. I feel humbled - I should have realised that there would be a more elegant solution than plastic. I'm not sure where to get some maple veneer but I'll start looking. I'll leave the pcb at the hobby shop and certainly won't use cardboard!

[robobass]

How about dentist's tongue depressers. Are they still made of wood?
Robobass

[Roger Davis]

But they're not very flexible, are they?

[Matthew Tucker]

For a DIY solution you can split your own shims off the edge of a 1" plank with a chisel. And I don't think you really need maple for what you are doing, unless you want the fix to be invisible.

Actually there's actually nothing inherently wrong with decent cardboard either. It's quite functional. You just need something dense and slightly flexible that you can finish neatly, and then only if you care about the look. "Fish paper" is basically just cardboard, and very often used in luthiery as a packing material or even for gluing between wood laminations.

Its all very well to shudder at the horrid gobs of cardboard - and I would, too - but the material itself is not to blame, unless you're using corrugated

That said, simple wooden shims would be neatest and would look better.

[forester]

got two this week one with poplar veneer.. one with the tongue depresser..( yes they are still made of wood..99% birch,like popsicle sticks..U.S.D.A says you can stick this in your mouth*) the heel and instep were trimmed but the toe was left bulledged..it had the appearance of being shod with snowshoes pulled a SP yesterday with same M.O.

[Roger Davis]

Originally Posted by forester

got two this week one with poplar veneer.. one with the tongue depresser..( yes they are still made of wood..99% birch,like popsicle sticks..U.S.D.A says you can stick this in your mouth*) the heel and instep were trimmed but the toe was left bulledged..it had the appearance of being shod with snowshoes pulled a SP yesterday with same M.O.

What's he talking about?

[Matthew Tucker]

"in the course of my work at the string shop last week I had two basses come in with shimmed bridge feet, one using a thin layer of poplar and the other using birchwood from a tongue depressor (birch being a wood which the US authorities have approved for use with foodstuffs such as popsicles and which presumably has no toxic effects). The modifications were roughly done, with the inner edges trimmed and the outer edge oversized and rounded over. Yesterday I removed a soundpost with similar shim modification."

But I have no idea what "8up" means ... something to do with offroad racing?

[Heifetzbass]

Cardboard is made out of wood!

Not my choice of shim! Just pointing it out.
BG

[Felessan]

Originally Posted by forester

got two this week one with poplar veneer.. one with the tongue depresser..( yes they are still made of wood..99% birch,like popsicle sticks..U.S.D.A says you can stick this in your mouth*) the heel and instep were trimmed but the toe was left bulledged..it had the appearance of being shod with snowshoes pulled a SP yesterday with same M.O.

no longer 8up

Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker

"in the course of my work at the string shop last week I had two basses come in with shimmed bridge feet, one using a thin layer of poplar and the other using birchwood from a tongue depressor (birch being a wood which the US authorities have approved for use with foodstuffs such as popsicles and which presumably has no toxic effects). The modifications were roughly done, with the inner edges trimmed and the outer edge oversized and rounded over. Yesterday I removed a soundpost with similar shim modification."

But I have no idea what "8up" means ... something to do with offroad racing?

That's got to be the awesomest translation of a colloquial paragraph I've seen on talkbass. I, too, had no freaking clue what he meant. Kudos, Mr. Tucker.

-Trevor

[forester]

[quote=Felessan;5751984]That's got to be the awesomest translation of a colloquial paragraph I've seen on talkbass. I, too, had no freaking clue what he meant. Kudos, Mr. Tucker.

thank you again Mathew Tucker and to all,i will in the future be mindful of the excessive colloquialism.

[pat1151]

Instead of putting material under the bridge feet. Why not put a little square of folded paper in the string slots on the bridge under the string. Paper comes from wood anyways as point out before.

I tried this on my bass and it worked wonderfully.

[Roger Davis]

Originally Posted by pat1151

Instead of putting material under the bridge feet. Why not put a little square of folded paper in the string slots on the bridge under the string. Paper comes from wood anyways as point out before.

I tried this on my bass and it worked wonderfully.

Hmm....