Strat traditionalists are invited to avert their eyes lest their delicate constitutions become woondid by the following.
For many years I've often wondered if there's a good fix for the problem of the little saddle height grub screws having a loose fit in the bent steel saddles. The usual 'fix' is to slightly pinch the saddle a wee bit tighter to keep the screws in place, but that is usually temporary and over time the screws get floppy again. Another common fix is clear nail polish on the screws to freeze them in place. These and other shop expedients treat only the symptoms and not the cause.
Yeah, anybody can get six aftermarket saddles cheap, or expensive. But being a DIY sorta guy I refuse to roll over like that. Besides, it would be nice to retain the original look of the classic saddles.
My first ideer was to remove the screws and fill the recess with silver solder, drill, and tap for the screws. This would provide a solid block of metal with threads for the entire length of the screw. Out came the acetylene torch and RanXerox shades, and I got to work. It was a failure because keeping control of the molten metal was a fool's errand.
If you don't know who RanXerox is, it's a comic character by artist Tanino Liberatore, and was the basis for Zappa's Man From Utopia album cover.
Anyway, the silver solder route was akin to jewelry repair and my equipment is too big for this kind of miniature work. What to do?
That's when my rural hillbilly farmer heritage kicked in: JB Weld! So out came the JB Weld epoxy and I slathered some into six cheap no-name bent steel saddles to see if it would work. I know it drills and taps just fine for low-load applications like this.
So far so good.
Just putting this out there for anyone else that would like to try it.
For many years I've often wondered if there's a good fix for the problem of the little saddle height grub screws having a loose fit in the bent steel saddles. The usual 'fix' is to slightly pinch the saddle a wee bit tighter to keep the screws in place, but that is usually temporary and over time the screws get floppy again. Another common fix is clear nail polish on the screws to freeze them in place. These and other shop expedients treat only the symptoms and not the cause.
Yeah, anybody can get six aftermarket saddles cheap, or expensive. But being a DIY sorta guy I refuse to roll over like that. Besides, it would be nice to retain the original look of the classic saddles.
My first ideer was to remove the screws and fill the recess with silver solder, drill, and tap for the screws. This would provide a solid block of metal with threads for the entire length of the screw. Out came the acetylene torch and RanXerox shades, and I got to work. It was a failure because keeping control of the molten metal was a fool's errand.
If you don't know who RanXerox is, it's a comic character by artist Tanino Liberatore, and was the basis for Zappa's Man From Utopia album cover.
Anyway, the silver solder route was akin to jewelry repair and my equipment is too big for this kind of miniature work. What to do?
That's when my rural hillbilly farmer heritage kicked in: JB Weld! So out came the JB Weld epoxy and I slathered some into six cheap no-name bent steel saddles to see if it would work. I know it drills and taps just fine for low-load applications like this.
So far so good.
Just putting this out there for anyone else that would like to try it.
Last edited:
