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Topic: bridge positioning question |
Tim Carlson
From:
Arizona, USA
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Posted 13 Feb 2008 2:11 am |
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| On fretted instruments, the fret spacing comes down to thousandths of a inch. What are the tolerances I need to hold on a lap steel when mounting a new bridge where a "floating" bridge once sat? |
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Roman Sonnleitner
From:
Vienna, Austria
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Posted 13 Feb 2008 3:00 am
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Measure the distance from the nut to the 12th fret, and then place the bridge at the same distance from the 12th fret in the other direction...
Measurements on a lap steel are not very critical - since the strings are not pressed onto frets, and the steel bar can be placed anywhere, you'll have to intonate the notes by ear, anyway (like, eg., on a violin).
The fret markers are just visual clues about where to place the steel bar, but due to parallax (the difference between viewing the fretnarkers relative to the steel from directly above vs. at an angle, when playing), those visual clues aren't exact, either.
So, no need to worry about fractions of a mm... |
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Tim Carlson
From:
Arizona, USA
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Posted 13 Feb 2008 12:05 pm
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| So I'm guessing that as long as I keep the bridge parallel to the nut, within 1/64 of an inch will be close enough? |
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Bill Creller
From:
Saginaw, Michigan, USA (deceased)
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Posted 13 Feb 2008 4:48 pm
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I'm really curious as to why a "floating" bridge was ever used on a steel guitar. Of course if it was a standard guitar bridge, and was inexpensive to use on a home-built guitar, I could understand. A floating bridge would, I think, detract from the sustain factor, being not really solidly attached(??)
Like Roman said, it's not super critical, and 1/64 may be as close as a factory built guitar!!! |
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Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
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Posted 13 Feb 2008 5:05 pm
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I agree with Roman and Bill ...
Even the famed Ricky Bakelites had pretty big errors ... when you get into the upper fretboard region ...
http://www.hsga.org/forum/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1186765808
As for a "floating bridge" ... the Bronson B6 I did recently for a buddy of mine ... had some sort of weird floating bridge ... POS ... thing ???
Folks really need to understand that for steels ... especially when tuned via JI ... well, the frets are just "cues" ... they are ET things that help ... but certainly don't "make or break" a fretboard layout ... |
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Tim Carlson
From:
Arizona, USA
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Posted 13 Feb 2008 11:19 pm
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Thank you all for your insight. Pictured below is the POS wodden bridge that came on my POS guitar. It wasn't even wide enough for all of the strings to fit on it properly. I hope no one minds if I stray from my original post, but I've read a little bit about different tuning temperments. While I understand it all a little bit, can anyone suggest how I should tune to learn to play along with CD's and the like? Obviously, when playing with a band, tuning to fit with them would work the best. Should I just tune and temper like I would on a regular guitar?
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Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
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Posted 14 Feb 2008 6:55 am
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That's almost the exact bridge that was slapped on that bakelite Bronson ...  
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| Should I just tune and temper like I would on a regular guitar? |
Since you asked for opinions ... 
Tune your steel guitar via Just Intonation ...
Having your steel in tune with itself ... is the most important thing ...  |
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Tim Carlson
From:
Arizona, USA
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