Lari (one of my luthiers) and I were drawing a locking stud that would be easy to use. I wanted it to have a wraparound bridge – if only those drawbacks were solved somehow. I’ve felt it’s not designed right, and so I’ve steered clear of it.Ī few years back I started to design the Unicorn Supersonic guitar. There is a constant force of about 60 kilograms pulling the wraparound bridge forward, so it’s no wonder that sometimes the wood gives in. This can happen if the fit of the bushings is too loose – or if the body wood is soft (like mahogany or spanish cedar) and the wood compresses over time, making the holes oval shaped. Or, the bushings have started to crawl up from their holes. I’ve seen guitars where the bushings of the wraparound bridge have given in and the whole unit is leaning forward. This results usually that after adjustments the bridge sits leaning forward, in an angled position in the loose stud slots. The traditional wraparound models are mounted with studs that need to have a pretty loose tolerance so there’s any room to balance the height of the low and high strings. I was reluctant for a long time to offer wraparound bridges in any of my guitars. This story describes perfectly my approach to guitar design in general. To use a wraparound bridge or a half tele bridge is really the question, to me.I’ll start from wraparound bridges for one particular reason. So, considering a wraparound creates about as intense a break angle as is possible, and since top wrapping in my experience leads to a stiffer feeling guitar, it seems perfectly logical to me that a wraparound bridge might give a stiff feeling to the strings, regardless of scale.Īnd I betcha a good p90 on a mahogany body esquire, possibly with a mahogany neck, would get very close to the sound of that old Gibson. And top wrapping the tailpiece makes it feel especially stiff. For example, I can change my Les Paul from stiff feeling to slinky feeling by simply raising the tailpiece a few turns so there’s a shallower break angle over the bridge. Otherwise, I’m not sure where the suggestion of ignorance is coming from. I had a 335, a marauder, and a Les Paul though. I’ll admit to being pretty oblivious when it comes to wraparound bridges in particular. I can get what I think is a high quality guitar for $800, a lot of times. I finished several of them myself, usually very simply with tru oil or water based stain. I need to take guitars to techs for fret work, but otherwise I’m perfectly capable of wiring and setup work. I do not like that one.Īs for partscasters, I’ve got a pine tele, a pine ric combo style guitar, a nonreverse firebird bolt on Fano type thing, a regular jazzmaster, a mustang, and a duosonic. There’s just a particular Gibson profile, and I guess it’s from the early 60s budget guitars, that’s a sorta skinny nut and thin fretboard with a deep u shape to the back of the neck. I’ve got an all mahogany hardtail jazzmaster with usacg’s big roundback profile and a bacchus Les Paul with a huge neck. What’s your experience? Can I get that tone but with a slinky feel? But maybe that’s the deal with wraparounds, and people just know what they’re getting into with them. I see builders like Dennis Fano and Saul Koll using wraparound bridges (often the fully intonatable kind) on their boutique guitars, and, while I haven’t played one of those, I imagine that those guys aren’t selling stiff feeling guitars. But I’m hesitant just because of the stiff feeling. Seems to me like a mahogany body esquire type thing with a wraparound bridge and a single p90 would make for a cool guitar. It feels like there’s an increase to the fundamental that really appeals to me, and the tone seems so pure with that setup. That just sounded so cool it’s got me wanting one. I’m always putting together partscasters and I’m thinking about trying a wraparound bridge on my next one, despite my experience with the old LP/SG. But the strings felt very tight and stiff, even with 10s on it.įorgive my ignorance, but is this how all wraparound bridge guitars feel? Or is there a way to set up guitars with that bridge so they feel slinkier? It was one of the ones that looks like a an SG. I had my friend’s old Les Paul jr with a single bridge position p90 pickup on loan to me for a good long while.
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