Hi - I'd wondered for ages about putting together a guitar myself, and after Beck died I decided to make one in tribute to him; I settled on a Seafoam Green Strat with a rosewood board and a reverse headstock, a la the CS Strats Beck used in the last few years. The body is a nicely resonant alder one from Northwest, but I've run into an issue - I have no idea how to accurately site the bridge, as there are no pre-drilled holes for it (I'll be going with a traditional 6-screw vibrato bridge in gold, as I reckon gold hardware will look great against the body colour) apart from the big hole for the bridge block.
Can I just measure from the where the holes on another Strat body are relative to the bridge-block hole (i.e. assuming all are routed the same), or is there another way I should do it? I'm figuring I want to get the bridge in before I can make sure the neck is accurately lined up to match string paths with the bridge.
tia
Comments
Trusting the edges of a body or any of its routed cavities is asking for trouble.
https://cziltangbrone.bandcamp.com/album/null-hypothesis-5-ep
https://cziltangbrone.bandcamp.com/album/machine-space-2
Measure from the fingerboard face of the nut to the top of the fret crown on the 12th fret. Double that distance, and mark the body there. That’s where the bridge saddle tops should be if adjusted fully forwards (so they’re just touching the pivot screws on a 6-screw bridge) - no string will intonate shorter than that, even the top E will be very slightly longer.
I would be wary about allowing ‘room for error’ by setting the bridge any further forward than that, since the low E often doesn’t have much more than just enough travel when fully back.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
https://cziltangbrone.bandcamp.com/album/null-hypothesis-5-ep
https://cziltangbrone.bandcamp.com/album/machine-space-2
https://cziltangbrone.bandcamp.com/album/null-hypothesis-5-ep
https://cziltangbrone.bandcamp.com/album/machine-space-2
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
https://cziltangbrone.bandcamp.com/album/null-hypothesis-5-ep
https://cziltangbrone.bandcamp.com/album/machine-space-2