Intonatable Bridge for Hofner Style Bass

JezWynd

The lack of accurate intonation on the Hofner bass is one of those low level annoyances that should be simple to overcome but, to my knowledge, never has been.  I came across this on for sale on Reverb, an Isana copy of a double cut Club Bass.



https://reverb.com/uk/item/95079162-isana-hollowbody-late-60s-sunburst

The metal bridge attachment(?) appears to be intonatable. Has anyone come across this style of bridge and are they available anywhere?

ICBM

I’ve never come across a single Höfner guitar or bass that can’t be intonated perfectly well with the stock bridge, using the combination of moving the little pieces of fret wire into the right slots, and angling the whole bridge… and I’ve worked on probably over a hundred of them.

JezWynd

ICBM said:

I’ve never come across a single Höfner guitar or bass that can’t be intonated perfectly well with the stock bridge, using the combination of moving the little pieces of fret wire into the right slots, and angling the whole bridge… and I’ve worked on probably over a hundred of them.

I can get my 185 to intonate accurately (it has a single shaped metal bridge) but I've been less successful with the standard Hofner violin type. Is there a setting/positioning of the tiny fret wires that makes it easier or will it be down to the individual bass and strings?

Either way, it's an incredibly clunky way to set up and the bridge pictured above or something similar based on it would be a big improvement.

ICBM

JezWynd said:

Is there a setting/positioning of the tiny fret wires that makes it easier or will it be down to the individual bass and strings?

Normally this, unless there's a string that won't play ball -

JezWynd said:

Either way, it's an incredibly clunky way to set up and the bridge pictured above or something similar based on it would be a big improvement.

You only need to do it once. After that it won't need adjusting unless you drastically change string types - normally you can just move the base of the bridge slightly, even for different gauges.

Bear in mind that an adjustable metal contraption can work loose, rattle and probably affect the sound. The Höfner design is actually a very elegant solution.