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Screws up or screws down?


daveinspain

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Which way should the heads of the saddle screw face? Up twards the pick ups or down twards the stop bar? I see them both ways... If you look at the post your pics thread just when you think most of them ar facing down a few ups show up.

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Yeah I've seen them both ways.

 

I have mine facing the tailpiece, I think that's the traditional direction.

 

When the screws face the pickups they seem to raise the action.

 

Hopefully some one shed some light on this topic, but I have a feeling it'll be divided,

right in two, 50/50.

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RichCi,

 

I've flipped my bridge and found that it raises the action, so there is a difference in

perfomace and playability.

 

The direction of the screws may not make a difference with a roller bridge. I prefer

the roller bridge.

 

If you think about it, the saddles are at an angle. So the screws may not matter as much

as the position of the saddles.

 

Wouldn't it be more natural for the strings to go up the slanted side of the saddle ?

 

Less tension and probably less likelihood for a string to break.

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Does It matter. I have only seen the nashville with it's adjustment screws facing the stop bar tail peice and the abr used both ways, although I dont know exactly how gibson over the years has sent them out. I perfer the adjustment screws on the abr facing towards the pickup myself. Sometimes and I have only run into this with the abr because it has less throw or travel, when installing different strings on some axes its easier to just turn around the whole tune-o-matic to get that extra adjustment out of it when setting intonation. I hate mess-in with that flimzy sattle screw hold down/retainer spring/wire and unscrewing the sattle screw to turn around the saddle, although I have done it and the wire is never the same and in the one time I did that on one certain sg, I ended up just getting a new abr because I didn't like the way the saddles moved around.

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The only way I can see the action changing is if you didn't readjust the saddles for intonation so that the angle of the string from the nut to the bridge is increased by the saddle being closer to the nut than it was previously. The saddles on my LP are installed with the angled part facing the stop tailpiece (along with the adjustment screws) and the strings are not even closely angled steep enough between for the angled part to touch them or even matter that the angle exists at all.

 

Here's a photo I just took:

 

lpbridge.jpg

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O.K. I can shed some light on this one. First the saddles on the nashville are always facing towards the pickups with the ramp to the back, and on the abr they are split 3 forward 3 backwards. Changing the direction of the saddles does not raise the string height. It's pivot point stay's the same. What does change the string height is the pivot point where the string rides on because of the grove It rides In. That Is when you turn the bridge around the low "e" is now riding in high "e's" position, that's say got a grove of 10 instead of 42 or 48 and must be widened.

 

Most gibson bridges I think are a 12" radius so the high e and low e can be swapped. Here Is a photo of a brand new chrome gibson abr( that hasn't been fitted yet, they do not come groved) and some gibson abr saddles. I even measured the abr saddle installed height and the saddles uninstalled with a digital caliper to make sure. The abr saddle overall height is .240" or 5.91mm. Installed saddle abr height,( low and high "e") is .477" or 12.11mm000_3930.jpg000_3940.jpg

 

P.S. Doublesixx you brought up a good point when you said "Wouldn't be more natural for the strings to go up the slanted side of the saddle" I never noticed that, I mean that makes sense and maybe that's why, on all the nashvilles all the saddles are facing forward.

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RichCi' date='

 

The direction of the screws may not make a difference with a roller bridge. I prefer

the roller bridge.

[/quote']

 

Hey doublesixx, do you use rollerbridges on any guitar? i have one instaled on my epi, and wanted to install one on my gibson, but my guitar tech friend told me they decreased sustain as they had more movile parts... is that right or just bull..?

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Thundergod,

 

Yes I use one on my Les Paul. I love it, I believe it helped improve sustain. Better surface

than the notch in a saddle.

 

Here's the one I have :

 

Roller Bridge

 

The beauty of that bridge is it'll fit directly on the Nashville studs, the kit does include the studs and

bushings but there's no need to change them, or at least I was lucky enough to leave the original.

 

Your tech friend is correct about more moving parts. That particular roller bridge allows you

to adjust string spacing, plus it locks the thumbscrews from turning and doesn't fall out

when re-stringing.

 

The Gibson roller bridge is fixed in place, and doesn't let you adjust string spacing.

 

There are two problems, both that have solutions. The first problem is the same for all roller

bridges I've ever seen, the rollers are pressed in place. They don't fall out or at least it hasn't

happened to me. In theory the tension of the strings should anchor the rollers safely.

 

I have a strange solution for the second problem. Since you can adjust the string spacing, the

rollers can spin easily. So you can remove the strings and move the guitar around a bit, or

accidentally move the rollers and you'll change your string spacing.

 

So once I remove the strings, I run hot glue across the bridge to lock in place. When it's time

to put the strings on I peel off the hot glue strip and put the strings on.

 

Like I said it's a bizarre solution.

 

Maybe I'll a Gibson roller bridge a try it's a little annoying gluing the bridge but it's so quick it doesn't

matter too much to me.

 

Surprisingly I've notice fewer string breaks.

 

I'll pm this to you in case Gibson removes 'cause I promoting a non Gibson part.

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