I purchased a Wilkinson vintage style bridge for a BSB affinity telecaster and was disappointed to find it doesn't line up. Has anyone here done this swap?Is there any way for getting this to work and also to have it cover all the other body holes ?
Wilkinson Bridge on a squier affinity tele
- Thread starter agaveman
- Start date
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Jack Wells
Doctor of Teleocity
What do you mean it doesn't line up?
No vintage style bridge plate is going to cover the original bridge mounting holes.
No vintage style bridge plate is going to cover the original bridge mounting holes.
Brian blaut
Friend of Leo's
I have an older squier MIM standard, so I don't know how it compares to your guitar, but I had to redrill. No big deal.
*Take off the bridge
*put pup in new bridge (now would be a good time to upgrade the pickups. I have a Duncan Broadcaster in the bridge and a Dimarzio Twang King in the neck. Total pup investment $100. A set of keystones can be had for 65$ shipped. Search keystones on this site if interested).
*rough out intination, leaving some room for adjusting later.
*set bridge in place and run fishing line/twine throuth the tuners and bridge to represent the low and high E strings. Wrap the line around the tuner posts, run it through the saddles and through the toploading holes and tape them down real good. Tighten the tuners if needbe just a little. These need to be tight enough to show you where the strings will lay.
*use the fishing line to show you where to put the bridge in terms of lining up the strings properly on the neck.
*Get a tape measure to measure the distance form the nut to the middle of the saddle. Measure on the high E string. You want the saddle to be 25.5 inches from the break point on the nut. Move the bridge up or back to line it up this way (remember you can still fine tune it by adjusting the saddle itself later).
*Tape down bridge with quality masking tape. If the bridge moves, you'll have to remeasure again.
*Drill the 4 holes. Us a bit that matches the solid width of the screw, not the teeth of the screw. You want teeth to be able to grab wood. If your screws have a thinker solid portion near the screw head, you'll need to do 2 part drilling where you drill for the bulk of the screw and then go back and widen just a little near the top for the wider part of the screw. Hold the bit up against the scew and find the appropriate bit that is the same size as the screw shaft, but still lets the screw teeth stick out. Use masking tape on your drill bit to show you how deep you need to drill.
*At this point I do the outer screws first and drill and insert the screws without taking off the bridge. Most people probably mark the drill holes, then remove the bridge and drill the holes. That never works for me. For the greatest accuracy, it seems I need to keep the bridge inplace for the whole operation.
*When your done, remove the tape and remove any tape residue with Naptha fluid.
* if you made a drilling mistake on the holes, just fill the hole with a dowel and a little woodglue (wait 24 hours for the glue to dry)
*All of this sounds way more complicated than it is
*If its intimidating, just take it slow, one step at a time. Know the process and understand each step. Ask questions until everything makes perfect sense.
* I just did this on my squier and put the same bridge on and I LOVE it.
*Know that when you put a vintage bridge on any tele, the bridge is physically smaller than the other one. The pickup route will peek through on either side or both sides. This is normal. If possible try to minimise it by evening it out on both sides. Although don't screw up your string placement in this process. I had to favor one side over the other to keep from messing up my string placement on the neck. Playability should win over looks here.
*You'll probably have a tiny little bit of the original mounting holes peeking from behind your vintage bridge. Not much you can do here. While you're lining up your bridge, you can move it back more to cover them up, at the expense of havin the bridge a little too far from the pickguard. This one is your call. Just split the difference and hide the holes as best as possible while keeping the bridge from getting too far from the pickguard to where it looks funny.
*note, I am not a luthier. Just a regular guy that read up a lot on this and have done it twice, so the Pro's may jump in here and correct any of my methods.
*Take off the bridge
*put pup in new bridge (now would be a good time to upgrade the pickups. I have a Duncan Broadcaster in the bridge and a Dimarzio Twang King in the neck. Total pup investment $100. A set of keystones can be had for 65$ shipped. Search keystones on this site if interested).
*rough out intination, leaving some room for adjusting later.
*set bridge in place and run fishing line/twine throuth the tuners and bridge to represent the low and high E strings. Wrap the line around the tuner posts, run it through the saddles and through the toploading holes and tape them down real good. Tighten the tuners if needbe just a little. These need to be tight enough to show you where the strings will lay.
*use the fishing line to show you where to put the bridge in terms of lining up the strings properly on the neck.
*Get a tape measure to measure the distance form the nut to the middle of the saddle. Measure on the high E string. You want the saddle to be 25.5 inches from the break point on the nut. Move the bridge up or back to line it up this way (remember you can still fine tune it by adjusting the saddle itself later).
*Tape down bridge with quality masking tape. If the bridge moves, you'll have to remeasure again.
*Drill the 4 holes. Us a bit that matches the solid width of the screw, not the teeth of the screw. You want teeth to be able to grab wood. If your screws have a thinker solid portion near the screw head, you'll need to do 2 part drilling where you drill for the bulk of the screw and then go back and widen just a little near the top for the wider part of the screw. Hold the bit up against the scew and find the appropriate bit that is the same size as the screw shaft, but still lets the screw teeth stick out. Use masking tape on your drill bit to show you how deep you need to drill.
*At this point I do the outer screws first and drill and insert the screws without taking off the bridge. Most people probably mark the drill holes, then remove the bridge and drill the holes. That never works for me. For the greatest accuracy, it seems I need to keep the bridge inplace for the whole operation.
*When your done, remove the tape and remove any tape residue with Naptha fluid.
* if you made a drilling mistake on the holes, just fill the hole with a dowel and a little woodglue (wait 24 hours for the glue to dry)
*All of this sounds way more complicated than it is
*If its intimidating, just take it slow, one step at a time. Know the process and understand each step. Ask questions until everything makes perfect sense.
* I just did this on my squier and put the same bridge on and I LOVE it.
*Know that when you put a vintage bridge on any tele, the bridge is physically smaller than the other one. The pickup route will peek through on either side or both sides. This is normal. If possible try to minimise it by evening it out on both sides. Although don't screw up your string placement in this process. I had to favor one side over the other to keep from messing up my string placement on the neck. Playability should win over looks here.
*You'll probably have a tiny little bit of the original mounting holes peeking from behind your vintage bridge. Not much you can do here. While you're lining up your bridge, you can move it back more to cover them up, at the expense of havin the bridge a little too far from the pickguard. This one is your call. Just split the difference and hide the holes as best as possible while keeping the bridge from getting too far from the pickguard to where it looks funny.
*note, I am not a luthier. Just a regular guy that read up a lot on this and have done it twice, so the Pro's may jump in here and correct any of my methods.
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