Tune-o-matic & Bigbsy

northbayj

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I'm planning on putting a B6 Bigsby on my X500, but I'm not sure what to do about the bridge. The one on the guitar currently is all wood, and would seem to be not at all appropriate for a tremolo. A Bigsby rocker bridge is an option, though I've heard that they're less than ideal. I read somewhere that Brian Setzer uses Gibson tune o matics on his Gretsches, so that sounds like a good idea. But before I shell out for one I want to be sure that the string spacing is going to work. Anyone have any expertise in this area?

Thanks
 

bobgoblin

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I had a stew-mac tunamatic knock-off on my old gretsch w/b6 bigsby, worked fine. in fact, i think i got the bridge after reading a post by our own walter broes, who has the same model stew-mac bridge on his guilds. maybe he'll chime in.
 

Walter Broes

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Tune-a-matics work fine with a Bigsby as long as they're well set up and the string slots are well cut. No problem with string spacing on my Guilds either.

I used to have Stew-Mac's TOM's on my guitars, but I've been dissappointed with their recent ones : they used to carry a very nice Gotoh TOM with a rosewood base that was the size of a Gibson ABR-1, but with individual saddle retainers à la Nashville TOM.
The bridge they substituted for that one is the same size, but has very ugly saddle screws on the side the previous ones didn't have, and worst of all, they're a very sloppy fit for the posts on the bridge bases they come with.
The holes in the bridge body that accommodate the posts are too large for the posts on the rosewood base, making for too much sideways slop, and that obviously doesn't help tuning stability.

I've recently been using a Japanese Allparts ABR-1 copy on two of my guitars that I'm pretty happy with, they're not expensive and very nicely made.
 

parker_knoll

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what about a Gretsch adjustomatic? Regular string spacing I think, and should just be a drop-in replacement, although they may charge for the name. There's an online Gretsch parts store.
 
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