Yes, another affinity vintage bridge conversion!

[winesoaked]

Hello everybody! I would like to share my experience in changin' the bridge on the affinity butterscotch body
I have to say a big thank you to all the people here who did this before me and shared the pictures of their work, that is what make me took the decision to do it by myself.
I left the trhee old bridge screws visible, i am not so annoyed by them, anyway any advice about how to fill and finish the screw holes is welcome.
I am very happy with the improvement! The guitar is a partcaster with a '89 squier korean made neck, gotoh kluson style tuners, GFS fatbody (with chrome cover added by me) neck pickup, 50's repro bridge pickup and a hand made black leather pickguard, just the body came from a '95 affinity. The bridge is the wilkinson "dual load", it really opened up the sound, the guitar gained in spank and sustain for days too. The thing i hate about the old bridge is the uncorrect strings angle, even if i decide to leave the bridge as a topload now the angle is sharp and the annoying buzz of the strings over the saddles is gone.
Thank you again and apologies for my english!
Greetings from Italy

[telepath]

Good work !
Those fatbody's sound quite something in the neck eh ?!

When I tried a Wilkinson bridgeplate on the Affinity I once had, there was a lot of the pup rout showing out either side of the plate.

Cant see that in yours above. Good stuff ;)

As its an Affinity, and not a CS Nocaster ;) a quick an effective enough fix might be to simply pop some lightly glued thin dowel - or similar - tight down the old bridge screw holes.

If you leave it very very slightly flush of the surface and then very carfully trim it back flat with - e.g. - a *very* sharp wood chisel, almost at an angle flat to the body (use tape to protect as much as poss) and then amber wood stain with a fine artist brush , then polish, then they wont be too noticable.

Or , you may be able to cut the dowel flat-ended enough - and stained - before inserting.

Or .. consider a Bigsby for part II of the project ;)

[crowden]

Looks good!

To cover the holes on mine I first took a wide piece of masking tape and centered it on the holes. I marked where the holes were, removed the tape and then used a leather punch to make 1/8" (about) holes. I put the tape back in place then filled the holes with wood filler, pushing it in with a toothpick. Using my finger, I flushed off the tops, let them dry then sealed it with clear fingernail polish then removed the tape.

The holes aren't invisible - but very unnoticeable and you can't detect them from 5' away very easily. In fact, I have to point them out for most people to notice them.

[winesoaked]

Thank you folks for the advices! To be honest if i look from the side a very little portion of the routing can be noticed but from the front view guitar looks perfect!
I think i will try to fill the screw holes using either wood filler and amber stain.
Keep in touch :)

[winesoaked]

As promised i am posting the results after the screws holes filling. I've used 3 dowels i made out of a 6mm birch stick supposed to be used in decorative fences i think. The small wood block you can see in the pic is useful to push down the dowel in to the hole perfectly. Even if i was very satisfied of the work i decided to try to dye the dowels with orange acrylic color... i assure you pics show more that you can see in person!
3 euros bill + 30 minutes work = me happy :)

[crowden]

Woah! Nice disappearing act!

[Rhomco Guitars]

Have my respect and admiration. Very nice workmanship and a great outcome.
Rob

[KevinB]

Nice job indeed!

[bullitt]

Very nice conversion.

[oramac7891]

Winesoaked----That is awesome touchup work!

[winesoaked]

Thank you folks!

[Tele-Dave]

Holes? I don't see no stinkin holes!

[winesoaked]

sorry but i had to remove pictures of my work in this trheard due to an hack attempt to my account on altervista.

[winesoaked]

in the end i did it.. all by hand "days of the caveman" style, i decided to install ferrules for tru body strings in my "converted" affinity. I started marking the holes in the wilkinson bridge using a little screwdriver, then i've used a tiny screw to make the holes, with a hand drill, using the holes as guides, i drilled the two "E" holes through the body, switched the bridge to the back of guitar, aligned the two external holes with the ones in the bridge and marked the last four ones, the rest was simply drilling by hand with a 3mm and then with a 8mm drill to accomodate ferrules.
of course i reloaded pics of bridge conversion too

[ASC67]

Great job !