Solid Body Bridge Options?
- Thread starter wardo
- Start date
Titchtheclown
Well-known member
Cbgitty dot com
anthonyg
Well-known member
Well since adjustable bridges aren't normal on a ukulele I have no idea what a "proper" one is supposed to look like. The ONLY adjustable ukulele bridge I have ever seen is the new Lanikai Tuna ukulele bridges and I suspect that they are still a proprietary design.
EDIT: Are you talking about a steel string ukulele? Some would argue that steel string ukuleles aren't really ukuleles although for the record I have 2. Yes the bridge that you CAN buy is for a tenor guitar and has 10.5mm string spacing. If you ARE talking about steel strings then the advantage of this spacing is that it matches the pole spacing of available electric guitar pickups. I've contemplated a steel string saddle for ukulele string spacing and what I would do is start from a blank bridge base plate and drill the right spaced holes and then use standard saddle inserts. The disadvantage of this approach is that you would then need to ensure that you used blade pickups.
Anthony
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Thanks for the thorough response. Yes, I am talking about a steel string "uke". Schaller makes a adjustable 4 string bass bridge that can get as tight as 15mm spacing. My current acoustic tenor is 14mm, so that seems in the ballpark. I am having a single pole pickup custom wound to match whatever spacing I come up with, so matching a standard is not an issue.
Ward
mvinsel
Well-known member
I get mine at at Moongazer Music.
Their ETGEUB electric ukulele bridge has a selection of spacings. I think the 1-5/8 inch total is very close to your 14mm between strings.
-Vinnie in Juneau
Their ETGEUB electric ukulele bridge has a selection of spacings. I think the 1-5/8 inch total is very close to your 14mm between strings.
-Vinnie in Juneau
anthonyg
Well-known member
Ok, well you know that you will need a custom pickup. As a matter of practicality and economics no one is going to make an off the shelf product knowing full well that all the other parts that will be needed to work with it have to be custom made. There is no agreed standard spacing for such an instrument anyway. When your working in timber its easy enough for builders to do their own thing but if you want to mass produce items in metal then standards are needed.
There are instruments out there but their parts are most likely proprietary. Risa uses a tenor guitar bridge with standard guitar string spacing and a guitar spaced pickup. Mt Jupiter Creek solid body ukulele also uses guitar spacing and standard guitar pickups.
I've contemplated the problem and I would use standard guitar saddles attached to a custom fabricated telecaster style bridge plate and then use a blade type guitar pickup. This method would have the most "Standard" parts.
14mm string spacing is on the wide side for ukuleles too. Typical ukulele string spacing is around 12.5-13mm however there is a bit of variation across my acoustic ukulele collection.
Anthony
Again, thanks for the thoughtful response. The custom pick-up is going to cost less than the off the shelf one I was looking at, so it seemed like a reasonable route and provides me flexibility in selecting the bridge. I realize I neglected to mention that this will be baritone sized. Since my favorite tenor has 14mm spacing, that is what I was shooting for. I think that I can pretty much adapt the Moongazer one, or one like it to get the exact spacing.
Regards,
Ward
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