Help - make my squier affinity pretty!

Alnico

There's no doubt that keeping your existing bridge and the 6 saddles is by far the easiest way to keeping it all straight and also the intonation of a six saddle bridge WILL outperform a 3 saddle one every time - YES, i said it !

Buying some decent saddles to go onto your existing bridge will be cheaper and way more effective than anything else you could do. In my opinion, changing to a vintage bridge would be a mistake if it's just purely for aesthetic reasons on a guitar that you don't want to go too far with.

GuitarMonkey

Yes, if you get the saddles where the strings pass through the centre then you won't have that twist around the intonation screws that seems to cause the saddles to tip over.

Alnico

@placidcasual79

can you post a picture of the saddles you have on there at the moment?

@Guitarmonkey has a good point but you may come unstuck with a toploading bridge if you buy the wrong type of saddle that is meant for a strings through body bridge.

It really depends on the gap behind the saddles to the back of the bridge.

Pics will help massively here and we could do worse than ask @ICBM to jump into this as he has a lot of experience in this kind of mod / repair and seemingly everything else in the known universe !

I actually thought the 'L Shaped' 70's style saddle may help with this issue but as GM said, they can have a tendency to Tip Over.

Alnico

Use an IMGUR account to host and post pics.

Photobucket is a P.O.S.

stickyfiddle

@Alnico has already posted a pretty comprehensive guide, so I'm just going to post these pictures that I found..

http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/files/2013/04/Slippery-Slope.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PQKTRN9N-7s/TDQl4rfU9wI/AAAAAAAAH9M/-GS8lBDGOZY/s1600/slippery_slope.jpg

Alnico

^^

VERY Appropriate !

ICBM

Alnico said:

Pics will help massively here and we could do worse than ask @ICBM to jump into this as he has a lot of experience in this kind of mod / repair and seemingly everything else in the known universe !

You called master?



Unfortunately my answer is quite simple, and possibly harsh - leave it alone. There's only so much you can do when the parts are not compatible enough to swap one for another without leaving visible problems. I would always prefer to leave an 'inferior' part in place than make a mess of the guitar by fitting a 'superior' one that doesn't actually fit.

Maybe I'm being overly fussy about things looking well done. But you did say you wanted it to look pretty...

Alnico

ICBM said:

Alnico said:

Pics will help massively here and we could do worse than ask @ICBM to jump into this as he has a lot of experience in this kind of mod / repair and seemingly everything else in the known universe !

You called master?



Unfortunately my answer is quite simple, and possibly harsh - leave it alone. There's only so much you can do when the parts are not compatible enough to swap one for another without leaving visible problems. I would always prefer to leave an 'inferior' part in place than make a mess of the guitar by fitting a 'superior' one that doesn't actually fit.

Maybe I'm being overly fussy about things looking well done. But you did say you wanted it to look pretty...

Is there any merit in trying to replace them to give a better quality saddle, in terms of care for the strings breaking and tone ?

Is it worth pursuing it on those grounds or is it literally going to turn into a can of worms? 

Alnico

Ok, i think @ICBM has a point here.........

Have a look at this, robbed from GAK.

If you can see past one of the best colour combo's ever put on a Telecaster, have a zoomy look at how the strings attach in the saddles and now do NOT go all the way through to the back of the bridge, like the older ones used to i seem to remember..............

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t42/roogie14/tn1_94090_zpslpghlyr8.jpg

That looks very specific as the strings appear to 'Anchor' into the saddle itself.

If yours are tatty maybe just get a new set that are for THAT model or as ICBM says, leave well alone.

Nothing stopping you replacing the screws and springs if they are an issue - that's easy and cheap !

Placidcasual79

I have an imgur account with a picture of the guitar on it - how do I get the pic on here?

Alnico

I'm not an imgur user so can;t really tell you. I havn't devoted enough time to the big switch from photobucket yet.

Hang on i will have a look...........

Alnico

Alnico

http://i.imgur.com/xMc7oLO.jpg

Placidcasual79

My affinity is the same spec as the one shown in the GAK picture (though sadly not the same colour!)

Alnico

Righto

You upload or find the image from your computer and once you're looking at the image itself, on the right hand side where you have all the various different options in a column, you copy the BBCODE but then you have to physically remove the [img] from the beginning and end of the link when you paste it in here.

Thanks, now i know how to use IMGUR !

ICBM

Alnico said:

Ok, i think @ICBM has a point here.........

Have a look at this, robbed from GAK.

If you can see past one of the best colour combo's ever put on a Telecaster, have a zoomy look at how the strings attach in the saddles and now do NOT go all the way through to the back of the bridge, like the older ones used to i seem to remember..............

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t42/roogie14/tn1_94090_zpslpghlyr8.jpg

That looks very specific as the strings appear to 'Anchor' into the saddle itself.

No, much simpler - that looks like a string-through bridge. They must have upgraded them.

That really is a beautiful colour, too...

Placidcasual79 said:

I have an imgur account with a picture of the guitar on it - how do I get the pic on here?

Cut and paste the 'direct link' into your post  - I think that's what it's called, it's the second one down that starts with "http://i.imgur.com/" then seven characters, and ends with .jpg.

Alnico

ICBM said:

Alnico said:

Ok, i think @ICBM has a point here.........

Have a look at this, robbed from GAK.

If you can see past one of the best colour combo's ever put on a Telecaster, have a zoomy look at how the strings attach in the saddles and now do NOT go all the way through to the back of the bridge, like the older ones used to i seem to remember..............

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t42/roogie14/tn1_94090_zpslpghlyr8.jpg

That looks very specific as the strings appear to 'Anchor' into the saddle itself.

No, much simpler - that looks like a string-through bridge. They must have upgraded them.

That really is a beautiful colour, too...

Placidcasual79 said:

I have an imgur account with a picture of the guitar on it - how do I get the pic on here?

Cut and paste the 'direct link' into your post  - I think that's what it's called, it's the second one down that starts with "http://i.imgur.com/" then seven characters, and ends with .jpg.

Or just do what he said.

@ICBM zoom in and it looks like it's NOT a string through...........

You can see the ball ends just below the saddle and the spec says it's a toploader bridge.

It looks like the same anchor method that the old 'Kahler Flyer' tremolo used to use - twist to fit and twist back to anchor.

I could still be wrong but have a closer look.

Alnico

That really is an intoxicating colour combo...................

Anyone fancy a stupidly overpriced Baja ?

(JOKE).

Placidcasual79

Is this it? [img]http://i.imgur.com/nfE64BM.jpg[/img]

Alnico

Placidcasual79 said:

Is this it? http://i.imgur.com/nfE64BM.jpg

No but that is !