Tuneamatic for a Starfire III?

[jackostrato]

hi folks,

well, i found my sf III. a 68/69 in really good shape for a pretty good price on craigslist. a couple of small issues (shrunken faceplate, badly glued pickguard crack, non-orig case) but it plays and sounds killer...by far the best of the 4 i've played over the past 6 weeks.

anyways, the stock compensated aluminum bridge sounds good to me but just ain't getting the intonation. any thoughts on a replacement tunamatic style bridge so i can zero it in? something that sounds good and isn't too over-spendy

thanks

 

[Cherry Starfire]

I would do it if you are having problems. You'll end up liking the guitar even more then you already do. The gotoh ones are nice and really not to much, check out allparts they have loads of options

 

[Walter Broes]

I have a Gibson Tune-a-Matic on a rosewood base on my Starfire III, works great, plays in tune, sounds great.

 

[Jeffm]

I would do it, i'm putting a tune-o-matic with rosewood base on my X-170 this week to solve intonation with a few strings.
Jeff

 

[Default]

Heh, my baby has a wound G, so no issues with that.

 

[jackostrato]

Ok. Is there one that sounds better than the others? Looking around, the gotoh and schaller and stew mac roller bridges all look pretty good.

And/or is there one that fits on the existing aluminum base without alteration ?

Is the bigsby aluminum bridge compensated for Plain G really that much better intonation wise?

Anyone have experience with the Compton bridge on a starfire? Any thoughts on tone and intonation ?

 

[puhio]

I put a Comptom aluminum bridge on my SFII. No Bigsby. I like D'Addario EXL115 strings( with plain G).Intonation is right on. Like how clean it is, perhaps the bridge is a little higher that the stock rosewood but works for me with the adjusting nuts bottomed on the stock rosewood base. Comptom website asks what material you want the bridge to be of when you order(aluminum,brass,stainless steel even titanium as I remember) and what strings you use. Very happy with it - still have the stock bridge which is set up for wound G. The website states aluminum is for country -I got it because it was the cheapest. As far as tone, that is perhaps more a function of my challenged ability than the bridge, but I think I get some twang.