Source for unusual HB, or Twangbucker bridge?

dugg · October 23rd, 2008, 02:03 PM

I'm building a guitar to replace a friends "wish I hadn't sold that one". It was a partscaster with a tele bod and strat neck. It had a very unusual, and so far, completely unfindable bridge that you can kind of see in this blurry photo. The bridge was a humbucking cut tele style, but had a closer placement of the PU to the saddles than stock. If you look close, you can see that the plate is a bit longer and amount of metal at the neck end is wider. He swears that this bridge said 'music man' on it, but I've not been able to find any tele style bridge with that inscription. I saw the original scan yesterday, and it shows some things that are not seen in this (sorry) crappy pic. In the original scan, it looks like the bridge is thick, chunky brass and has beveled corners. First question is; anyone seen this bridge on any axe at all, or where we can get it? All thoughts, no matter how fuzzy, are welcome.

Slight digression here. I recently made an original (?) strat mod I call the 'Coyote Dancer'.
http://www.strat-talk.com/forum/non-...antbucker.html
It involves moving the middle coil down next to the bridge and wiring the two up as a 'slantbucker'. A mini on/on/on toggle chooses either single coil, series or parallel for the slantbucker, and a five position 'mega switch' gets; Neck alone, neck and slant in parallel, neck and slant in series (15k), neck and slant in series out of phase, and slantbucker alone for a total of 13 sounds that range from thin biting single to fat, creamy, compressed HB. In searching for my friends bridge, I stumbled upon the John Jorgenson model 'hellecaster' which has a custom bridge that accepts two single coils on a slant wired as a humbucker. This youtube vid shows him switching the sounds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzF9FDIcz3w
The sound of the bridge humbucker sounds almost exactly like my coyote dancer.

Ok, back to the project at hand. A bit more searching turns up the Rio Grande Twangbucker bridge and pickup. If you're not familiar with this setup, it's a tele style bridge similar to what you see on the JJ 'hellecaster', but it looks to me like the pickups are even closer to the bridge, which we want.
http://www.warmoth.com/catalog/produ...ducts_id=26997
My friend could probably be convinced to go with the Twangbucker arrangement if it's the only thing we can find, but we'd prefer to buy the bridge and mount our own coils. The reason is not so much to save money, but to have more control over the type, quality and balance of the two coils. Second question is; Does anyone know where we can get a tele style bridge, like the RioGrande kind, only without the pickups?

Chris Leger · October 23rd, 2008, 02:23 PM

Regular humbucker style bridges are here:

http://www.allparts.com/store/guitar...s,Category.asp

martino · October 23rd, 2008, 07:04 PM

this is what I 1st thought of TV Savalas Bridge Plate

https://tvjones.com/cgi-bin/commerce...ey=02-011-0100

maybe just one of these with other saddles ?

http://store.guitarfetish.com/chhubrforteg.html

robt57 · October 23rd, 2008, 07:15 PM

I like those Filtertrons, twangly-jangly ;)

dugg · October 24th, 2008, 10:15 PM

Thanks Chris and Martino. Those are the normal humbucker tele bridges. The one we're looking for, or the replacement, should have a closer position of the pickup to the bridge. I thought about cutting an existing single PU tele bridge to fit a humbucker, but if I space it close to the saddles it will leave an ugly hole up at the neck end where the end of the angled single was. I could take a stock single PU bridge and cut the hole to fit another single between the stock one and the saddles, kind of like the FCS JJ model. That way we'd still have choice of pickups. My plan would be to make an unbalanced humbucker with the coil closer to the bridge being a bit hotter. Are there such thing as RWRP telecaster singles?

October 23rd, 2008, 07:15 PM	#4 (permalink)
robt57 Poster Extraordinaire Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Lost Yankee in Nashville Age: 52 Posts: 5,862 22 Photos	I like those Filtertrons, twangly-jangly ;) __________________ Leo's Great, Leo's Good, let us thank him for our... Twang!

October 23rd, 2008, 02:23 PM	#2 (permalink)
Chris Leger Banned Tele-Holic Join Date: May 2008 Location: New Hampshire Age: 44 Posts: 923 2 Photos	Regular humbucker style bridges are here: http://www.allparts.com/store/guitar...s,Category.asp

October 23rd, 2008, 07:04 PM	#3 (permalink)
martino Tele-Holic Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: LA CA US Posts: 638	this is what I 1st thought of TV Savalas Bridge Plate https://tvjones.com/cgi-bin/commerce...ey=02-011-0100 maybe just one of these with other saddles ? http://store.guitarfetish.com/chhubrforteg.html

October 24th, 2008, 10:15 PM	#5 (permalink)
dugg TDPRI Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: san clemente, CA Age: 53 Posts: 61	Thanks Chris and Martino. Those are the normal humbucker tele bridges. The one we're looking for, or the replacement, should have a closer position of the pickup to the bridge. I thought about cutting an existing single PU tele bridge to fit a humbucker, but if I space it close to the saddles it will leave an ugly hole up at the neck end where the end of the angled single was. I could take a stock single PU bridge and cut the hole to fit another single between the stock one and the saddles, kind of like the FCS JJ model. That way we'd still have choice of pickups. My plan would be to make an unbalanced humbucker with the coil closer to the bridge being a bit hotter. Are there such thing as RWRP telecaster singles?