Which bridge for a 12" radius fretboard?

[thegumbootman]

I've got an EGC neck which has a 12" radius which I will be using with a Jaguar body and I'm trying to figure out which bridge to go with.

My usual go-to bridge is Staytrem, but they don't do 12" radius bridges. Mastery would work but they are pretty expensive. Not a fan of stock Jazz/Jag bridges.

Questions:

• Will it make a huge difference if I were to use a 9.5" Staytrem with my 12" radius neck?

• What other options are there for a 12" radius?

[Larry Mal]

Here you go:

http://www.warmoth.com/Modified-Mustang ... -P616.aspx

[Embenny]

Agree with the modified Mustang bridge, but will add that Mastery can be set to 12", if you're into that kind of thing.

I went through my Mastery phase, still have 2 of them, but won't personally be buying any more, as I'm happier overall with my Staytrems. I do have one of the Warmoth modified mustang bridges as well and it's perfectly fine. I'd go with one of those for a 12" radius for sure.

[pscates]

I know at one point on Staytrem's site, they invited you to ask about other radius options beyond the 7.25" and 9.5" offerings. I can't find any reference to that now (probably wasn't worth the hassle to deviate from the two biggies and they removed that part of the copy), but it may be something worth emailing and asking about? If he offered this at one time, maybe it's still something he'd do (even if not blatantly advertising it)? Or, what if he happened to have 1-2 lying around? You never know! I'd email and just ask if it's something he'd still do (or has on hand).

Otherwise that one from Warmoth is probably the way to go. Traditional styling, with radius adjustment.

[timtam]

Is the Warmoth really any different from the one used on some Fender blacktops (0081239001) ? ...

http://darrenriley.com/store/fender-imp ... 081239001/

[Larry Mal]

In function, who knows, but the Warmoth bridge looks like it uses something closer to the full size Mustang saddles, though.

I'm sure it's a terrible bridge. That Fender one looks worse. I'm not really endorsing either of these things. My usual answer would be "Mastery" but the OP already had dismissed that.

So then the choices are the Warmoth bridge, a standard Jazzmaster bridge will do just fine, or I guess that Fender thing. All of which would be easily adjustable to 12" radius. Maybe there's some kind of TOM solution I don't know about.

[thegumbootman]

I know at one point on Staytrem's site, they invited you to ask about other radius options beyond the 7.25" and 9.5" offerings. I can't find any reference to that now (probably wasn't worth the hassle to deviate from the two biggies and they removed that part of the copy), but it may be something worth emailing and asking about? If he offered this at one time, maybe it's still something he'd do (even if not blatantly advertising it)? Or, what if he happened to have 1-2 lying around? You never know! I'd email and just ask if it's something he'd still do (or has on hand).

Top-notch suggestion - thanks! I emailed him and he happened to have one from a cancelled order, so now I have a 12" radius Staytrem on the way. That was the best possible outcome.


Thanks for the other replies everyone!

[Embenny]

In function, who knows, but the Warmoth bridge looks like it uses something closer to the full size Mustang saddles, though.

I'm sure it's a terrible bridge. That Fender one looks worse. I'm not really endorsing either of these things. My usual answer would be "Mastery" but the OP already had dismissed that.

So then the choices are the Warmoth bridge, a standard Jazzmaster bridge will do just fine, or I guess that Fender thing. All of which would be easily adjustable to 12" radius. Maybe there's some kind of TOM solution I don't know about.

D'oh. I totally missed the Mastery mention in the OP.

Like I said, I have one of the Warmoth bridges. It's fine relative to a modern Fender bridge. It's not nearly as nicely made as my Staytrem or Mastery bridges, but that's not what I expected from it. Got it back in the day before Staytrem and Mastery were a thing, for my 9.5" strat neck I put on a Warmoth body, because there were no other Mustang bridges available and I didn't want a regular JM one. Oh, and because I had tried a spectacularly unsuccessful trial of Graphtech/TUSQ saddles first.

[Larry Mal]

Yeah, Graphtech sounds horrible to me.

So, yeah, I guess the OP is looking for a cheap bridge that would give decent response and be adjustable and still be a halfway decent bridge, and of all the choices that hit those parameters I think that Warmoth looks like the best deal. If it was a 7.25" radius I'd just say the regular Mustang bridge, but since we need to hit 12", I guess I gotta say the Warmoth.

Whoever suggested writing StayTrem makes a good point. StayTrem makes a wonderful bridge and I'd always rather spend the money once and have a great product than do what I have had to do, which is cycle through a bunch of bullshit bridges until I finally pulled out my wallet for the last time and called it a day.

Otherwise, if this guitar is a keeper, then Mastery is the obvious choice. Sometimes you hear people say things like, well, I won't sink that kind of money into this guitar since that's more than half of what I paid for it, and then I wonder, so you bought a cheap guitar, with cheap and bad components, and you aren't happy with them, and you won't spend the money to fix it up because it's a cheap guitar, but it's a cheap guitar because of the bad components on there, but it's too cheap to put good components on there, but the guitar is cheap because of the bad components...

I don't try and get into that feedback loop.

[pscates]

Top-notch suggestion - thanks! I emailed him and he happened to have one from a cancelled order, so now I have a 12" radius Staytrem on the way. That was the best possible outcome.

Ahh, cool! About two times a year, I'm good for some solid, workable advice (even if accidentally). Seeing as how it's only January 9, I'm in real danger of peaking early for 2018...

But seriously, that worked out great. The few times I've emailed Staytrem about anything, even just a goofy question, I've always received a prompt, helpful and friendly reply (it's quite rare to get all three of those with other outfits I've dealt with...it's usually "pick two"; the worst being "yeah, we're prompt and helpful, but we're sure gonna be atomic a-holes about it!").

I was hoping he might've had one lying around, and that's exactly what happened.

[Larry Mal]

What do you know about that!

[Embenny]

Top-notch suggestion - thanks! I emailed him and he happened to have one from a cancelled order, so now I have a 12" radius Staytrem on the way. That was the best possible outcome.

Ahh, cool! About two times a year, I'm good for some solid, workable advice (even if accidentally). Seeing as how it's only January 9, I'm in real danger of peaking early for 2018...

But seriously, that worked out great. The few times I've emailed Staytrem about anything, even just a goofy question, I've always received a prompt, helpful and friendly reply.

I was hoping he might've had one lying around, and that's exactly what happened.

That's awesome. John is very accommodating...I recently e-mailed him to check if he could do one of his adjust-o-matic replacement bridges in a 7.25" radius in case I got trigger-happy and slapped the Coronado neck I have on the CP JM I picked up in a trade. He sounded a bit surprised that someone wanted that combination of specs but said it could be done after the re-design of the AOM replacement is complete (sometime in the next month).

Staytrems really hit the quality/price-point sweet spot, in my opinion. They're a no-corners-cut type of quality for "it didn't cost 1/3 as much as the guitar!" money. My fourth one is in the mail as we speak.

[timtam]

In function, who knows, but the Warmoth bridge looks like it uses something closer to the full size Mustang saddles, though.

I'm sure it's a terrible bridge. That Fender one looks worse. I'm not really endorsing either of these things. My usual answer would be "Mastery" but the OP already had dismissed that.

So then the choices are the Warmoth bridge, a standard Jazzmaster bridge will do just fine, or I guess that Fender thing. All of which would be easily adjustable to 12" radius. Maybe there's some kind of TOM solution I don't know about.

Terrible ? Why ?

The Warmoth does indeed look like it uses Mustang-style saddles (plus the height screws), which basically just means they have that little circumferential ridge near each end. The Fender one doesn't have the ridges - its saddles look like those on some 6-saddle Teles.

But functionally they're both like the original JM/jag bridge in being height-adjustable, except with only one (deeper ?) groove per string. So unless one likes the multi-grooves of the original (eg for flexible string spacing), they would both seem to have the likely advantage of less string pop-out (as some have reported).

Re a TOM solution, Gotoh make a TOM with adjustable height saddles.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Gotoh-510B ... 2055936687

[pikmin]

I've got an EGC neck which has a 12" radius which I will be using with a Jaguar body and I'm trying to figure out which bridge to go with.

My usual go-to bridge is Staytrem, but they don't do 12" radius bridges. Mastery would work but they are pretty expensive. Not a fan of stock Jazz/Jag bridges.

Questions:

• Will it make a huge difference if I were to use a 9.5" Staytrem with my 12" radius neck?

• What other options are there for a 12" radius?

Actually , I have a 12'' radius Staytrem ! It was a custom order for my Custom 77 T-Sonic and it's' perfect for it . So it should be possible to find a 12'' radius Staytrem.

[pscates]

Scroll up about 7-8 posts. Already a done deal.