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Pickup pole spacing

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Tej
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I’m looking at a pair of pickups for my bandsman build, the iron gear ones I’m looking at have two options for spacing

Bridge = 52mm, Neck = 50mm

E to E on my design over the centre of the bridge Humbucker is 50.6mm give or take and 48.6 over the centre of the bridge one, again E to E

Either way it’s not a great alignment unless I use their neck spacing in the bridge and get over the slightly off aesthetics for my neck pup. But the size isn’t the only difference the bridge is hotter so to do this I’d have to request a custom one. So, two things

1. Does the pole spacing not aligning with the strings make much difference, I suspect not?

2. Assuming the only difference is the aesthetics has any one made a 25.5 scale  length bandsman they’d post a picture of noting the pickup pole spacing please?

There was a lot less to think about when I only played these things 🤔

 

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tv1
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They’ll be absolutely fine.  Standard spacing as used on most HB-equipped, fixed bridge guitars.  
You don’t get different pole piece spacings for different scale lengths.  Just imagine all the combinations that would have to be made/stocked.

1.  No.

2.  I haven’t!

 

 

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Tej
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Hah, yeah I thought mentioning the scale length was somewhat irrelevant afterward. I think they’d be bang on if I’d gone with a 54mm bridge, anyway, given it’s not something I’d paid the slightest attention to up to this point in life I’ll not dwell longer and get the pair.

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mattbeels
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@tej

This is the bridge you’re using, right? It looks like a 52mm spacing is perfect! In my experience a slight mismatch on the poles doesn’t make any noticeable difference in the sound but personally I don’t like the way it looks. 

image

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mattbeels
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Btw @tej I just noticed that bridge has a 14” radius, are you aware of that? I don’t know which radius you’re planning on your board but if it’s a 12 then a 14 will be a tad flat. 

It’s not a big deal as you can adjust your saddle slots to match. Those bridges usually only have starter slots and need to be filed anyway. If you need advice just let me know. 

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Tej
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@mattbeels irritatingly i didn’t consider the radius of the bridge despite ensuring the fretboard radius was what I wanted. I’d presumed that the saddle height on all bridges was adjustable. I’ll have to have a closer look at it tomorrow and see what I can and can’t do with it. 
Curious as to why I’d need to file the slots though?

 Thanks for the heads up, next time please preempt my mistakes and let me know telepathically before I order things 😬

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tv1
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I just noticed that bridge has a 14” radius, are you aware of that? I don’t know which radius you’re planning on your board but if it’s a 12 then a 14 will be a tad flat. 

Seriously @mattbeels (seriously, for once!), is that a biggie?

I've never really considered the radius of the bridge when choosing which one to use.  

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Tej
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So from a glace it doesn’t look like they will adjust in height after all. Just need to work out what the reality of that is. Given I’ve not started it’s tempting to keep for build 2 and just get a 12”radius bridge

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tv1
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Curious as to why I’d need to file the slots though?

So from a glace it doesn’t look like they will adjust in height after all.

If you file the string slots in the saddle deeper, then you'll be able to create a 12" radius from what starts out as a 14" radius bridge.  You can't adjust the height of the saddles, but you can adjust the height of the strings (ie, effectively the radius of the bridge) by filing the string slot down.

You'd deepen both E strings the most, then the A & B strings a little less, and leave the D & G slots alone.  

But - seriously - I've never bothered trying to fine tune the set-up to that extent.  Matt may well know better (it's his job, whereas it's just a hobby for me!), hence my Q to him, above.

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Tej
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But - seriously - I've never bothered trying to fine tune the set-up to that extent.

@tv101 sadly this is the kind of thing that will bug me! Given I’ve not started the actual build I’ll look for another bride, in fact gotoh to a separate bridge (with height adjustable saddles) and separate tailpiece that I might go for instead. They also do a couple of I supposed “strat styled” bridges too, shaeler also had a couple but they’re getting more expensive. 
@mattbeels if I did modify this bridge filing the slots, what files would I need to do the job properly?

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Tej
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I’ll look for another bride

The edit function really needs fixing!!

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tv1
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The edit function really needs fixing!!

Rumour is that reads your sub-conscious and types what you're thinking ...

 

 

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Tej
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@mattbeels @tv101

So having mooched around further I’m looking at these instead, any gotchas I’ve overlooked. Still 52mm E to E so my neck taper will be fine and a 12” radius over the saddles:

https://www.wdmusic.co.uk/hardware-parts-c1/bridges-tailpieces-c2/tune-o-matic-bridges-c36/gotoh-nashville-tune-o-matic-bridge-large-posts-p661

https://www.wdmusic.co.uk/hardware-parts-c1/bridges-tailpieces-c2/tailpieces-c49/gotoh-stop-tailpiece-p657

There’s a small post version of the same bridge too but think the difference is solely aesthetic.

Thoughts?

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tv1
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@Tej

I was curious, and have too much time on my hands, so I just drew out the dimensions of a 12" and 14" radius circle, aligned them both to the top point of the circle, and measured the height difference at a point 26mm out from the centre (ie where the E string saddles would be).

Radii

Can you guess what the height difference is?

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tv1
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With apologies for my poor mouse control (and hence the extra 0.043mm on the lateral dimension!), here's a blow up of the black dot that you see at the top of the first image, just to the left of centre.

It's the measurements ...

HeightDiff

The height difference at the E string is 0.157mm.

Or, about half the thickness of the top E string.

Or, about two hair's breadth.

Or, not enough to worry about ....

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Jonathan Hodgson
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@mattbeels, I recall an article on Taylor electrics, and then man from Taylor was talking about what they considered to be the best setup, which was what they did at the factory.

Part of it as I recall was that the neck was a 12 inch radius, but the strings were given a 15 inch radius at the bridge.

I’ve not looked into why they would do this, but I thought it interesting at the time and relevant in the context of a 14 inch radius bridge and 12 inch radius neck.


   
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Tej
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Or, not enough to worry about ....

@tv101 so I did the same just and it measured at 0.0863mm, I’ll leave this one alone 😬 but thank you for going to the trouble of pointing how pointless my concerns are in this case!! Not sure why the measurements are so different though I was using Visio as opposed to proper CAD tools.

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Tej
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@jonhodgson if you do find it again please share the article, I had a quick search around but couldn’t lay my hands on it.

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Jonathan Hodgson
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@Tej, I think it was in a copy of Guitarist magazine that I browsed in the shop, I don’t know if it was ever published electronically 


   
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Rocknroller912
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@tv101

I watched a utube video on this last year, think it might have been Texas Toast Guitars where he radiused a fretboard then put a different curve template over it. A sheet of paper wouldn’t go underneath at roughly the 20th fret. Some players get obsessed about changing the radius as it’s going to be easier to play. Interested to read any one else’s opinion.

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