Starfire III-Replacement bridge for Tune-o-matic with Guildsby?

GAD

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Starfire IV here with a Compton bridge. I'm not sure of any difference in neck angle or how that would affect your application. But the Guildsbys are both B6 type. Compton fit on the original NS bridge base and there have been no issues whatever.


The Compton is my favorite bridge for a Bigsby-equipped guitar.
 

Quantum Strummer

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My main beef with TOMs, apart from the Gotoh Nashvilles, is their small adjustment range. My preferred strings and gauge make for a broad intonation pattern that even a slanted ABR-1 TOM with flipped lower-string saddles has trouble handling. Either the low E is a bit sharp or the D is a bit flat depending on the slant. I go with it in older guitars where the bridge is in minty shape, especially when the slots have been cut off-center for proper alignment, otherwise it gets replaced with a Gotoh. I did manage to get my NS T-bird properly intonated, just barely, by flipping its D saddle for more forward travel.

-Dave-
 
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adorshki

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Where is the Redneck Riviera? I grew up in Tallahassee, FL and we used to refer to Panama City by that moniker.

I assumed he's talking somewhere on Gulf Coast, either Texas or Louisiana, lot of Vietnamese settled along that stretch to take up shrimping back in the '70's.
He's from Louisiana originally.
I always thought that explained why he was so "at home" in Viet Nam, the shared French cultural backgrounds.
A quick check of the Urban Dictionary confirms your definition though.
 

marcellis

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close -- Mississippi Gulf Coast - less than an hour from the Louisiana state line.

Something different from the string height problem is I don't like the front-mounted screws on any ToM. There is no way I can adjust those w/o scratching the pick-ups or worse. To remove it and put it back with each adjustment, makes no sense to me. I just looked at a Jazzmaster bridge w/rear-mounted screws. That makes sense. Some of the Guild metal bridges would work too.

I took a ok a photo of my bridge. But Ihaven't uploaded it yet.
 
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Quantum Strummer

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Just to note: you don't have to use a TOM with the adjustment screws facing forward. You can take it apart, rearrange the saddles and then put it together "backwards."

-Dave-
 

parker_knoll

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However, the design of the Bigsby saddle is just plain weird. The bottom is somewhat rounded, supposed to help with vibrato usage...so it's designed to rock on the thumb-wheels on the posts...and uses shorter mounting poles to facilitate the rocking motion. The problem is, there's no "zero" to return to, so tuning is not stable. AND...if you play too hard, you knock the saddle off the short posts!

I found taller mounting screws online and modified them to work and it really helps stabilize the bridge and tuning. But, with the Bigsby saddle, I'm stuck with plain G string intonation. It's not horrible, but it's not exact. So, I'll be changing to a TOM.

The zero is set by the trem itself: it's the equilibrium between the tension of the strings and of the Bigsby spring, so it will always return to that point. Personally I really like the Bigsby bridge but others (Walter for example) not.
 

marcellis

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I'm making a trip to Vietnam in the near future. So I am going to remove the wooden bridge and the ToM. I'll take it with me and ask Mr. Binh to make a bridge (or two) that is thicker. That way he'll get the curve of the bridge correct.

Once I get back and have more space on the poles - I ditch the ToM for something else.
 

D55007

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Hello,

Am I right in saying that if I get a Compton bridge on my Starfire III (NS) then the rosewood one will be taken away? I really dislike it. I think it looks silly compared to the rest of the guitar.
 

jp

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Hello,

Am I right in saying that if I get a Compton bridge on my Starfire III (NS) then the rosewood one will be taken away? I really dislike it. I think it looks silly compared to the rest of the guitar.
No. The Compton bridge will still need to be mounted on a rosewood or ebony base with threaded adjustment posts to raise or lower it. I don't really know if the mounting posts spacing on a Compton bridge will match the posts on a Bigsby base, but I think you might be able to do that. Compton post spacing measurements are here. IIRC Bigsby post spacing come if two different sizes as well.
 
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D55007

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The thing is, I really want rid of the rosewood bridge as I think it looks silly. Are there no other options? If you look at the Guild in the link above, It look like it has a metal one?
 

GAD

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The thing is, I really want rid of the rosewood bridge as I think it looks silly. Are there no other options? If you look at the Guild in the link above, It look like it has a metal one?

Metal bridges are from the Westerly/Corona days. I like them for the sound, but they're a bit of a pain because they need to be ground/sanded to the shape of your guitar, so you can't just but one and slap it on.
 

Walter Broes

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If you set it up right, a Tune-o-matic with a wood base works great with a Bigsby, I've had that setup on my guitars for years.

I've seen plenty of Newark Street SFIII's, and there's nothing really wrong with the Bigsby and bridge setup on those angle-wise - the guitars actually have a pretty tall neck set, providing more than enough break angle behind the bridge, so you get the right tension with the single roller B6-alike Bigsby.

There's one problem with a lot of Newark Street guitars and Tune-a-matic bridges : a lot of those guitars have a 10" or 9.5" fretboard radius, and typical tune-a-matics are a little flatter than that. If you carefully notch the saddles with the proper tools, you can get a 10" radius out of the bridge, but more often than not, they don't come from the factory that way.
And that can lead to setup problems if you want somewhat uniform string height over the frets : set the bridge height so the D and G strings feel good, and you'll see both E strings are sitting quite a bit lower on the frets. I suspect that can be the cause of the string buzz you're experiencing. Another cause of string buzz I see very often is that necks are set up a little too straight with relatively low action and hardly any relief. Add that to a (too) flat radius on the bridge, and you'll often have to raise the bridge to uncomfortable stiff action before the strings stop buzzing on the frets.
 

swiveltung

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The Compton bridge is nice.
I just put a Gretsch Bar Bridge on my archtop and love it. FYI: It's a hair warmer than my Tune O Matic was though. It fit onto the Tune O Matic posts! Although it came with a base. It allows the bridge to rock with the Bigsby too.
There's a Bigsby Bridge available with metal (but rosewood style) base that's not expensive. Allparts, Ebay or elsewhere.
Also a Sorkin Bowtie bridge has metal base.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gretsch-02...545766?hash=item1a8fabb9a6:g:oxAAAOSwNq9eD8h7
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bigsby-Sor...PgAAOSwENZdu2oO:sc:USPSFirstClass!98273!US!-1

People sell these bridges over on the Gretsch pages all the time.
 
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dbirchett

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Let me add another option here: the TruArc Serpentune. The Tru-Arc bridge came in to being when Tim Harman convinced his machinist brother to match the arc of the fingerboard on his Gretsch with better quality metal than came on the guitar initially. The Serpentune is the latest edition and is designed to give better compensation for the individual strings. This one is compensated for a plain "G" string.

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