Fender Strat hardtail bridge - 'Vintage' vs contemporary

Haych

My fav guitar of the moment is my '82 hardtail Strat.  It's been through the mill a bit (quite literally where the neck is concerned) and the bridge saddles are well passed their best.

I can get new saddles quite easily but out of interest I wondered how easy a contemporary hardtail bridge would be to fit.  I know the string spacing is slightly different but modding the bridge to fit existing string spacing wouldn't be a huge task.  However, my main concern is the three holes through the bridge plate for securing it to the guitar body - would these be in the same place or not?

I've scoured Google for a definitive answer but haven't found one so far.

Just been to my 'local' Fender dealer.  A set of new stamped steel saddles, £32.99; a new hardtail bridge complete with the same saddles (I can see no discernible difference), £16.99.  Go figure!

I do have reasons other than cost for considering this too.  It's not just because I'm a tight-wad!

victorludorum

You'd have to take the various measurements and compare I'm afraid. I would guess that some good quality generic saddles would be your best bet. Axes R Us do a good range that is cheap and of decent quality. I think more contemporary tends to mean narrower strings, so you'll have to consider that too if you go for a complete change.

richardhomer

Some manufacturers produce the right size saddles which will fit your existing bridge - just check around on line.

perdonally I'd want to preserve the originality of the guitar as much as possible - alsospacing across the bridge pick-up poles will be 'out' with narrower string spacing.

Haych

@richardhomer I hear what you say and I would keep any bits that I replaced for posterity.  There seems to be a few different string spacings available for Strats, 52ish mm, 54mm and 56.5mm.  I think mine is the widest but the e-strings are quite close to the fingerboard edge and I'd like to bring them in a bit.  Also they are just at the edge of the poles on the bridge pup so making the spacing slightly narrower should help this too.

However, as I said it's all well past it's best and getting the saddles to sit consistently is difficult, it could be that new saddles of the correct width will be enough, I certainly need to do more measuring.  I'm not even sure that the saddles on the guitar are the originals, that might explain why the bridge setup is a bit squiffy.

@victorludorum you may have inadvertently answered my original question - thank you.  Axes R Us do a few bridges and they have schematics of them on their website.  The mounting holes all seem to be 45mm spaced regardless of string spacing.

ICBM

Haych said:

Just been to my 'local' Fender dealer.  A set of new stamped steel saddles, £32.99; a new hardtail bridge complete with the same saddles (I can see no discernible difference), £16.99.  Go figure!

I do have reasons other than cost for considering this too.  It's not just because I'm a tight-wad!

If the saddles on the new bridge are definitely identical, just buy the new one and swap the saddles onto you old bridge!

Check first though, since the original bridge will be 56mm string spacing, and most modern ones are narrower.

Haych

@ICBM sorry bud, when I said the saddles were the same, I meant that the saddles on the new hardtail were identical, as far as I could see, to the saddles sold as a loose set.  I don't know how wide they were and the string spacing on the new saddles and the bridge wasn't mentioned on the packaging.

victorludorum

Haych said:

@richardhomer I hear what you say and I would keep any bits that I replaced for posterity.  There seems to be a few different string spacings available for Strats, 52ish mm, 54mm and 56.5mm.  I think mine is the widest but the e-strings are quite close to the fingerboard edge and I'd like to bring them in a bit.  Also they are just at the edge of the poles on the bridge pup so making the spacing slightly narrower should help this too.

However, as I said it's all well past it's best and getting the saddles to sit consistently is difficult, it could be that new saddles of the correct width will be enough, I certainly need to do more measuring.  I'm not even sure that the saddles on the guitar are the originals, that might explain why the bridge setup is a bit squiffy.

@victorludorum you may have inadvertently answered my original question - thank you.  Axes R Us do a few bridges and they have schematics of them on their website.  The mounting holes all seem to be 45mm spaced regardless of string spacing.

I would imagine that you're guitar has vintage string spacing, so you should be able to find a set very, very easily. If you want to bring the bring the string spacing in a bit, you will need a new plate as the holes that are drilled through the back (that hold the saddles in place) of your bridge will still be vintage spaced, and you'll need something narrower. 

victorludorum

A photo might help us a bit too ;-)

richardhomer

The surgery involved in respacing the string holes is not advisable on a guitar which is from quite a collectable period.

The easiest cure to resiting the top E is to do what EC did with Blackie - deliberately realign the neck so the bottom E runs off the neck in the higher positions.

Its a bodge - but entirely reversible. 

Haych

richardhomer said:

The surgery involved in respacing the string holes is not advisable on a guitar which is from quite a collectable period.

It's not really all that difficult and I wouldn't need to re-drill the guitar body to achieve it.  If I could get a replacement bridge with slightly narrower spacing to fit (and it looks highly likely this is possible) there might be enough tolerance to allow the strings to pass even if the holes are misaligned slightly.  If there isn't enough tolerance then I plan to drill the holes in the bridge plate out a bit to create enough tolerance.  I won't have to modify the guitar body at all and it would be completely reversible by putting the old bridge back on

I think I've killed it's collectability though.  Earlier this year I had the fingerboard replaced.  It was in dire need of a refret and the original walnut board was way too thin to allow it to be refretted without cutting the fret slots into the maple neck wood.  I wasn't down with that so I had the old board milled off and a new rosewood board made for it.

The guy has done an incredible job but to a collector I doubt it would have the same desirability.  However, it was bordering on being unplayable before and it's given the guitar another 35 + years of life so I'm not at all unhappy.