Hi everyone!
I'm looking to channel the collective wisdom of this group in order to properly specify a design I'm working on. I hope the design will be useful to a good number of you, and I'd be extremely grateful for any help you can offer!
Just as background and a declaration of interest - my name's Dan and I'm the creator of the Tuffset Bridge, which is a rocking bridge for Offset Guitars (Fender Jaguar, Jazzmaster and Mustang-style guitars with non-threaded "bridge thimbles" in the body).
We debuted at The Guitar Show UK in March this year, and the reception was great! But a huge takeaway for us was the sheer number of Gibson, Epiphone and Gretsch players who were looking for an option to fit their guitars that feature Bigsby and Maestro vibrato tailpieces.
It still feels like half the questions we're getting are people who want a TOM/AOM option, and we want to get this right and deliver for those people! But it's really important we know which guitars and bridges our conversion kit will be compatible with, and that's where I'm in need of your help.
I'm really open to your ideas on this. Ideally, I want to formulate some easy "rules" so a potential customer can know whether the bridge will fit their guitar.
My current design for the TOM/AOM version features conversion thimbles that screw into M8 threaded body inserts and lock into place, providing the fulcrum within the hole that the bridge needs to float. We've done some tricks with eccentric surface machining, so it can be made to fit a range of post spacings from 73mm - 74.5mm. I scoured the internet for as many diagrams and technical drawings of Tune-O-Matic bridges as I could, and this (M8, 73mm+) seemed to cover the widest pool of designs.
Am I really talking about a "Nashville" bridge? Do all Nashville bridges have M8 threaded inserts or is there an imperial thread version I should be aware of?
A full Yes/No list of all the guitars that have ever featured a TOM-style bridge would obviously be too ambitious and confusing! But I'd love to be able to say "If it's a Gibson and it has threaded inserts, it will fit", or "If it has a Nashville-style bridge, it will fit" and post a detailed diagram of how to tell if their bridge is Nashville-style (or something like that).
I basically need help figuring out a shorthand way for the customer to tell which bridge types obey the criteria, and to know therefore whether the bridge will fit their guitar!
A little about the Tuffset's design - the TL
R!
Firstly, it's a rocking bridge. That means there are pointed tips at the bottom of the posts, and these are supposed to locate in a concave shallow cone surface at the deepest part of the body inserts / thimbles, which act as the fulcrum point.
Rocking motion also means the string slots in the saddles are engineered to be "high-friction". The strings grip the bridge, and this is how it returns to correct intonation and tuning after you use the vibrato.
Secondly, it's "fully locking". The strings don't lock to the bridge, and the bridge doesn't lock to the guitar body - but every other adjustment on the bridge, from the post heights to the saddle heights to the intonation, locks firmly into position - such that when the bridge is set up, it's performing effectively as a single piece of steel like a Compton bridge or similar.
Thirdly, unlike other bridges, each saddle has individual height and intonation adjustment. This means not only can you intonate the guitar correctly (and with a much wider range than other TOM-style bridges), but it will also allow a perfect setup for action regardless of your fretboard radius.
Thank you so much for reading, feel free to reach out to me with any questions you might have! Cheers
Dan
I'm looking to channel the collective wisdom of this group in order to properly specify a design I'm working on. I hope the design will be useful to a good number of you, and I'd be extremely grateful for any help you can offer!
Just as background and a declaration of interest - my name's Dan and I'm the creator of the Tuffset Bridge, which is a rocking bridge for Offset Guitars (Fender Jaguar, Jazzmaster and Mustang-style guitars with non-threaded "bridge thimbles" in the body).
We debuted at The Guitar Show UK in March this year, and the reception was great! But a huge takeaway for us was the sheer number of Gibson, Epiphone and Gretsch players who were looking for an option to fit their guitars that feature Bigsby and Maestro vibrato tailpieces.
It still feels like half the questions we're getting are people who want a TOM/AOM option, and we want to get this right and deliver for those people! But it's really important we know which guitars and bridges our conversion kit will be compatible with, and that's where I'm in need of your help.
I'm really open to your ideas on this. Ideally, I want to formulate some easy "rules" so a potential customer can know whether the bridge will fit their guitar.
My current design for the TOM/AOM version features conversion thimbles that screw into M8 threaded body inserts and lock into place, providing the fulcrum within the hole that the bridge needs to float. We've done some tricks with eccentric surface machining, so it can be made to fit a range of post spacings from 73mm - 74.5mm. I scoured the internet for as many diagrams and technical drawings of Tune-O-Matic bridges as I could, and this (M8, 73mm+) seemed to cover the widest pool of designs.
Am I really talking about a "Nashville" bridge? Do all Nashville bridges have M8 threaded inserts or is there an imperial thread version I should be aware of?
A full Yes/No list of all the guitars that have ever featured a TOM-style bridge would obviously be too ambitious and confusing! But I'd love to be able to say "If it's a Gibson and it has threaded inserts, it will fit", or "If it has a Nashville-style bridge, it will fit" and post a detailed diagram of how to tell if their bridge is Nashville-style (or something like that).
I basically need help figuring out a shorthand way for the customer to tell which bridge types obey the criteria, and to know therefore whether the bridge will fit their guitar!
A little about the Tuffset's design - the TL
R!Firstly, it's a rocking bridge. That means there are pointed tips at the bottom of the posts, and these are supposed to locate in a concave shallow cone surface at the deepest part of the body inserts / thimbles, which act as the fulcrum point.
Rocking motion also means the string slots in the saddles are engineered to be "high-friction". The strings grip the bridge, and this is how it returns to correct intonation and tuning after you use the vibrato.
Secondly, it's "fully locking". The strings don't lock to the bridge, and the bridge doesn't lock to the guitar body - but every other adjustment on the bridge, from the post heights to the saddle heights to the intonation, locks firmly into position - such that when the bridge is set up, it's performing effectively as a single piece of steel like a Compton bridge or similar.
Thirdly, unlike other bridges, each saddle has individual height and intonation adjustment. This means not only can you intonate the guitar correctly (and with a much wider range than other TOM-style bridges), but it will also allow a perfect setup for action regardless of your fretboard radius.
Thank you so much for reading, feel free to reach out to me with any questions you might have! Cheers
Dan
