Modded my Sadowsky!

[bucephylus]

Dude, I painted it chartreuse and pink, drilled holes in the body, and attached heavy metal to it!!!

Blasphemy, you say? Well, just kidding, I only drilled holes and attached metal.

So, I have a wonderful RV5 right a 9 pounds and really a nice player. There were only three things that bugged me about it.

First I would have preferred a 1 3/4" nut; but OK, I'm not yet able to spring for the NYC of my dreams. Someday. Anyhow, the stock neck is just fine in a P sort of way.

Second, there was a slight wolf tone on the g string at the 7th fret.

Third, the B strings were continually dying faster than the rest because the intonation required screwing the saddle back so far towards the tailpiece that the break angle was damaging the string core. I should say that I use stock DR's with no taper on the B. Players using taper cores won't notice the issue with the B lifetime.

So, my mod was to move the bridge back 1/4". That's it. With this mod, the G string saddle comes just even with the front of the bridge.

This completely fixed the issue with the break angle, and the B string is resonating much more freely now.

The unexpected thing was that the wolf tone disappeared from the G. I now can play a chromatic run up the g string and it is totally even all the way up. YES!

Anyhow, I was actually very careful with the addition of the new holes. The bridge can be reset in either position with no evidence of holes showing. I think it is a good mod.

 

[0175westwood29]

pics?

 

[bucephylus]

pics?

Yeah, I should have shot before and after. The thing is you really can't see any big difference, except that the saddles are positioned now more towards the front of the plate. Anyhow, here is the "after."

 

[pickles]

What a trip! The bridge is the only part of a sadowsky that I don't love, for the reason you noted with B strings, and also since it is hard to get Bs and Es in there without scratching the finish behind the bridge and without twisting the cores. Pretty strange that it cleaned up your wolf tone, but man what a happy accident!

 

[bucephylus]

What a trip! The bridge is the only part of a sadowsky that I don't love, for the reason you noted with B strings, and also since it is hard to get Bs and Es in there without scratching the finish behind the bridge and without twisting the cores. Pretty strange that it cleaned up your wolf tone, but man what a happy accident!

Yes, wolf tones can be very "voodoo" to eliminate. Perhaps, there was a resonance in the length of string between the saddle and the tailpiece that the G didn't like.

I played the bass for a while more last night, and it just seems to have freed everything up, with the result that the whole bass is far more resonant and even across all the strings. I think it was a good mod, at least for this instrument.

Sorry, I should also mention that this mod made the insertion of the ball ends of the lower strings MUCH better, with far less potentially damaging issues. The end of the B takes a little wrestling, but the E slides right in now.