I've been filling up The Soundgear Club thread with a bunch of posts about this project, so I thought it might be best to move it to its own thread. Here's what's happened and where I'm at so far.
I recently got a smoking good deal on a barely used 2012 Ibanez SR505QM. It's exactly what I was wanting, and it happened to pop up for sale locally from a very generous seller (it was cheap enough already, but then he lowered the price and threw in some freebies too). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to play it yet!
I picked it up the week before the COVID-19 crisis hit the big time. The seller hadn't used it in years; it was just hanging on the wall in his home studio looking pretty. I got it home, tuned it up to check it out for just a couple minutes, then went to work on another project. When I came back to it about a half-hour later, the D string had popped out of the bridge, and two more looked like they would soon. After doing a little research online, I found out it was from a run of guitars with defective bridges that were cast from inferior metal. Over time, the studs holding the ball-end of the strings would bend until they couldn't hold the string anymore. I found a thread here on TB where an Ibanez rep acknowledged the problem and offered replacements. That was some years ago, and I got this guitar secondhand, but fortunately they were very cool about it. When I called them, they asked me to email them some pics of the bridge and the serial number, and told me they'd send a replacement out for me no charge. Then, as my luck would have it, the COVID crisis went big and they closed up for quarantine before shipping my replacement out. So, I've been stuck at home all this time with this new-to-me bass that is my first ever 5-string, and all I can do is admire how pretty it is. Torture!
Well, I decided to get creative and see if I could come up with at least a temporary fix that would let me get some 5-string practice time in during all this mandated downtime. I love to do 3D modeling (VERY amateur hobbyist), I have a 3D printer, and have never been very good at thinking inside the box anyway. I decided I would try to make a modified version of the Ibanez B305 bridge out of 3D printed plastic with a metal reinforcement plate inside it for strength. I have hope that it might work at least as a temporary solution, but it's a fun project even if it doesn't work out. I expect it won't sound very good as the plastic will kill any resonation, but it would at least let me practice for now.
So, here's what I've done so far:
As I said, my plan was to 3D print a modified replica of the original Ibanez B305 bridge. For the most part, it will be the same overall design with two major changes.
1) I'm eliminating the quick-change slots for maximum strength. I've never been a big fan of that design. With all the other effort involved in changing strings, I think the loss of strength at one of the most essential points of tension on a guitar isn't worth the five seconds saved having to pull the string through a hole. That's especially important with a plastic version. There's no way such a small piece of plastic would hold up to all that tension. A solid piece across the back with holes for strings and screws to go through will allow the tension to distribute across a larger area better.
2) I'm leaving an "L" shaped cutout in the bottom and back of it for a metal reinforcement plate. Even with the solid design, plastic alone won't be strong enough to hold all the tension of a string in the tiny little area of the ball end. It would pull the ball right through the plastic. Instead, there will be a metal plate that spans most of the bottom of the bridge, and up inside the back to actually hold the tension of the strings. It will be thin-gauge metal that by itself would bend from the tension. The plastic will provide the support to keep the metal plate from bending, and the metal will provide the tensile strength to keep the strings from pulling through the holes.
It sounds good in theory at least...
Here's the original design: Black is the new plastic model. Large silver is the original style. Small silver is the metal reinforcing plate that slides inside the black plastic (you can just see it through the sting holes).
I recently got a smoking good deal on a barely used 2012 Ibanez SR505QM. It's exactly what I was wanting, and it happened to pop up for sale locally from a very generous seller (it was cheap enough already, but then he lowered the price and threw in some freebies too). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to play it yet!
I picked it up the week before the COVID-19 crisis hit the big time. The seller hadn't used it in years; it was just hanging on the wall in his home studio looking pretty. I got it home, tuned it up to check it out for just a couple minutes, then went to work on another project. When I came back to it about a half-hour later, the D string had popped out of the bridge, and two more looked like they would soon. After doing a little research online, I found out it was from a run of guitars with defective bridges that were cast from inferior metal. Over time, the studs holding the ball-end of the strings would bend until they couldn't hold the string anymore. I found a thread here on TB where an Ibanez rep acknowledged the problem and offered replacements. That was some years ago, and I got this guitar secondhand, but fortunately they were very cool about it. When I called them, they asked me to email them some pics of the bridge and the serial number, and told me they'd send a replacement out for me no charge. Then, as my luck would have it, the COVID crisis went big and they closed up for quarantine before shipping my replacement out. So, I've been stuck at home all this time with this new-to-me bass that is my first ever 5-string, and all I can do is admire how pretty it is. Torture!
Well, I decided to get creative and see if I could come up with at least a temporary fix that would let me get some 5-string practice time in during all this mandated downtime. I love to do 3D modeling (VERY amateur hobbyist), I have a 3D printer, and have never been very good at thinking inside the box anyway. I decided I would try to make a modified version of the Ibanez B305 bridge out of 3D printed plastic with a metal reinforcement plate inside it for strength. I have hope that it might work at least as a temporary solution, but it's a fun project even if it doesn't work out. I expect it won't sound very good as the plastic will kill any resonation, but it would at least let me practice for now.
So, here's what I've done so far:
As I said, my plan was to 3D print a modified replica of the original Ibanez B305 bridge. For the most part, it will be the same overall design with two major changes.
1) I'm eliminating the quick-change slots for maximum strength. I've never been a big fan of that design. With all the other effort involved in changing strings, I think the loss of strength at one of the most essential points of tension on a guitar isn't worth the five seconds saved having to pull the string through a hole. That's especially important with a plastic version. There's no way such a small piece of plastic would hold up to all that tension. A solid piece across the back with holes for strings and screws to go through will allow the tension to distribute across a larger area better.
2) I'm leaving an "L" shaped cutout in the bottom and back of it for a metal reinforcement plate. Even with the solid design, plastic alone won't be strong enough to hold all the tension of a string in the tiny little area of the ball end. It would pull the ball right through the plastic. Instead, there will be a metal plate that spans most of the bottom of the bridge, and up inside the back to actually hold the tension of the strings. It will be thin-gauge metal that by itself would bend from the tension. The plastic will provide the support to keep the metal plate from bending, and the metal will provide the tensile strength to keep the strings from pulling through the holes.
It sounds good in theory at least...
Here's the original design: Black is the new plastic model. Large silver is the original style. Small silver is the metal reinforcing plate that slides inside the black plastic (you can just see it through the sting holes).
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