whammy bridge under 3/8" for carved top?

[joel benne]

I want to change my current bridge to a vibrato bridge on my carved top, but haven't been able to find anything with a low enough profile. A bigsby style would be ideal, but i need it to adjust down to 3/8" above the body. A bridge for a flat top might work too, i left a 4"x4" flat area around the bridge when i carved it. any ideas?

[Dan Hehnke]

That's a tough one. A Jazzmaster trem might be the lowest, but of course you'd have to route a big hole for that. I recently got a Mosrite style trem (search ebay if you want to see what it looks like) to try out on my latest guitar, but it's string height is even higher than a bigsby, and I have to raise my TOM bridge a bit higher than I would for a bigsby to get a decent string break angle. If you did use a Mosrite style, you could maybe custom fabricate a bar for the strings to go under kind of like a Bigsby, and make it as low as you want?

Actually I just looked at my Bigsby guitar, it sure seems like the strings come out at below 3/8" are you sure this wouldn't work?

[Dan Hehnke]

The whizzo buzz stop is what I was trying to think of too. It's meant for a jazzmaster trem, but you could mount it in front of something like the Mosrite trem too to lower the string height. I'm actually considering it just to get more break angle, but not sure how dumb it would look.

[joel benne]

Thats a good idea, thanks! so you think it will work to use a bigsby behind a mosrite roller bridge, using a buzz stop if needed?

[Dan Hehnke]

I definitely think the mosrite bridge with Bigsby will work just fine even without a buzz stop.

Just a warning, I got the mosrite style trem on ebay, that came with the mosrite style bridge, and I like the trem, but I'm not happy with the bridge. A couple of the rollers buzz when playing that string, no matter which fret. My preference is the wilkinson bridges that look more like a normal tune-o-matic but have the slide-able roller saddles. I've also found those on ebay.

I ended up putting a normal nashville-style non-roller bridge on this guitar with the Mosrite trem, and I'm much happier than with the weird mosrite bridge. For the amount of bending that I tend to do with this kind of trem, it seems to stay in tune just fine without rollers. I have the bridge raised up enough that the whole thing seems to sway a bit on it's mounting posts, instead of the strings moving across the saddles.

This gives me an idea for a bridge design that does this on purpose, instead of dumb roller saddles. Hmmmm.

[John Catto]

Pretty obvious but Fender style and all derivations. Anything else requires more height to guarantee string pressure so will be a bodge.

Just double checked my Les Pauls and other tune-o-matic type guitars are set up with the bridge "almost" bottoming out on the body, very low compared to many and they are at 5/8" no way you'll make 3/8" work with anything but a Fender style or something that's made to replace it (kahler etc.)

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

I was just on the bigsby site and it looks like the B5 might work. The total height of the front roller section is 11/16". It looks like the bottom of the roller is 1/2 way down making it just under 3/8".

[John Mueller]

Check out the GFS XTrem
http://www.guitarfetish.com/Xtrem-Vinta ... c_373.html
I'm not sure of the height but the ones I have play felt great.

[Freeman Keller]

Latest issue of Fretboard Journal (#37) has an interview with Joseph Yanuziello who takes a B3 (which doesn't have the pressure roller), cuts off the back part so its like a B5 and recesses it slightly into the body. He says he sets the neck an additional degree to get the right break angle. He makes his own bridges.