vintage style bridges: specs or manufacturing tolerance quirks

Here's a Wilkinson by Sung-Il bridge bridgeplate like you can buy from various ebay sellers, placed back to back with a FENDER PAT PEND bridgeplate so that the pickup hole and pickup mounting/adjustment holesare are aligned as close as possible.

The screw holes on the Wilkinson plate are farther from the pickup hole, and the two on the lower side are closer to each other, compared to the Fender plate.

Here's a closeup of the lower left hole.

Here's a closeup of the upper hole.

Here's a closeup of the lower right hole.

Here's a pickup mounted in the Fender bridge.

Here's a pickup mounted in the Wilkinson bridge.

I noticed this anomaly in the hole spacing when simply mounting a pickup in the Wilkinson bridge, then later analyzed why and took these pictures to show. The screws going through the Wilkinson bridge are angled a bit, and the farther they go in (the higher you try to raise the pickup), the more the angle becomes a problem.

The Wilkinson bridge does have some good points. Note the nice placement of the toploader holes in the Wilkinson bridgeplate in the middle, compared to those of another clone plate on the top. That's the Fender plate on the bottom.

The Wilkinson's holes are more evenly placed. And they are placed lower on the lip, which reduces the risk of sitaring with low riding saddles.

The Wilkinson's intonation holes are placed a bit higher on the lip than on the Fender, which I think is an nice touch. With the higher placement on this end, the other end of the intonation screws are likely to not stick up so high.

I just compared the 2 here and it is consistent with your findings.

Does it make any difference is th question. I have seen similar differences on the hole for the Tele Bridge PUP screws. A tilt of the screw probably only be a real issue if the pup was very high and then I guess it is possible the screw could bind.

What is you question/point? Or just the observation??

I would have thought they would be a lot closer myself. ;)


Ciao

I have noticed that I had to enlarge the pickup screw holes on a few Wilkinson bridges to accept stock screws from various USA made pickups.

Part of the "misalignment" might be due to the smaller hole size. In the pics, above, it appears that one edge of the smaller hole is indeed aligned with the Fender hole edge but the smaller hole throws off the equivalence.

Correct me if I am wrong about this...don't have a loose Wilkinson bridge to verify.

I didn't have any questions, just some observations to share.

The holes for the pickup mounting/adjusting screws on this Wilkinson plate aren't small. 6/32 screws pass through those holes as easily as on the Fender plate. The holes are just not aligned ideally to mate with Fender spec pickups.

I plan to ream each hole out slightly in the direction that will make them align better before I try to use the bridge again. I don't mind that kind of tinkering on inexpensive parts like these.

The holes for the pickup mounting/adjusting screws on this Wilkinson plate aren't small. 6/32 screws pass through those holes as easily as on the Fender plate. The holes are just not aligned ideally to mate with Fender spec pickups.


After thinking about it some more, the hole size problem I refer to might have been caused by the misalignment. I had a situation where if I loosened the screw the head of the screw would raise above the plate because the hole was catching the thread. This could easily be because the screw was going through the hole at an angle.

Solution: Enlarge hole somewhat so screw can turn without threads engaging metal.

I plan to ream each hole out slightly in the direction that will make them align better before I try to use the bridge again. I don't mind that kind of tinkering on inexpensive parts like these.

I judiciously reamed out the holes using a round needle file. I can now fit the pickup to the bridgeplate without the screws being angled and binding. And although there are some slight finish imperfections that show where the edge of the screw holes almost peek out from under the screw heads, you have to look real close to see that.

Hi Yegbert, in the other post about vintage style top loaders, Jack Wells posted a pic of a GFS bridgeplate, which, although it doesn't feature compensated saddles, imho looks very similar to the bridgeplate of the Wilkinson. Have you had any chance to compare and what do you think?
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-tech/122019-vintage-style-top-loader-bridge.html

Hey Amby,

I haven't used one of those. I trust Jack and I believe what he says about that bridge.

There are so many different sources and brands of inexpensive vintage style Tele bridges that are similar, and they vary on small details. So it depends on what's important to you, which one I'd recommend.

If you want one plain without a logo or you want grooved brass saddles, that GFS bridge has that going for it.

I wonder what the placement of holes is like on it. Some inexpensive bridgeplates have less than optimally spaced/placed toploader holes, others have less than optimally spaced/placed pickup mounting holes. Just eyeballing it I wouldn't be surprised if it needs some judicious reaming of the pickup mounting screw holes, but that wouldn't stop me from buying it.

I like the FENDER PAT PEND logo and the Glendale logo. I don't like the large logo on the new Fender American Standard plate. I don't particularly care for this Wilkinson by Sung-Il logo, a non logo look on an inexpensive bridgeplate would be more to my liking. But maybe years from now this Sung-Il company will no longer be making this plate, and I'll remember it fondly and wax nostalgic about it. People are funny about memories like that. :smile:

So what's important to you in a Tele bridge?

Hi Yeg, what's important to me is that the bridge sounds and looks great (bridgeplate made from steel), compensated saddles can be intonated as near as perfect (especially with 9 to 42 gauge strings) and didn't cost the earth.
Regards
Amby.

Hi Yeg, what's important to me is that the bridge sounds and looks great (bridgeplate made from steel), compensated saddles can be intonated as near as perfect (especially with 9 to 42 gauge strings) and didn't cost the earth.
Regards
Amby.

The requirement for a plate made from steel can be satisfied with any of several bridgeplates, including the $8.99 FENDER PAT PEND, the Wilkinson by Sung-Il and probably that GFS plate too.

Compensated saddles that intonate good for low cost? RS Guitarworks, the Wilkinson saddles that often come with the Wilkinson by Sung-Il plate, and StewMac are all in what I'd consider the least expensive tier.

The requirement for the bridge to sound and look great is entirely subjective, you'll have to decide which one best satisfies that. Some folks love the Fender plates because they are thin, have wrinkled looking corners and inconsistent plating that's less shiny near the saddles. Others like them more "perfect" looking. The StewMac saddles will bump into each other on the ends and splay out giving you the wrong "angle", looking imperfect and intonating imperfectly unless you tweak their ends by grinding, filing or cutting them, but some prefer their rounded shape over the others I suggested.