Les Paul Junior bridge placement? - created 12-17-2008

Byron, Joel - 12/17/2008.22:20:53

Does anyone know the measurements for the bridge placement and angle on a Les Paul Junior? Most of the vintage ones I've seen seem to have a greater angle than a normal Paul. I'd be using the original style aluminum tailpiece made by Gotoh and available through Stew-Mac on a custom build for my Dad. Thanks!

The answer to your question depends on where you are at the moment in your build process. Is this a guitar that the neck has not yet been fit to or do you already have a guitar with the neck attached?

Early in building one of these guitars, it starts with calculating the entire result via full scale drawings and having the parts on hand to do the measuring. Don't forget to consider the space needed for a dog-ear style - non-height-adjustable P90. The ultimate situation is to have an actual LP Jr on hand.

Otherwise, if the guitar is already built, I just make up a sudo tailpiece, put the bridge on shims and move it around until I get the intonation and string/neck alignment correct and mark the body where the holes need to be.

Years ago I owned a mid 50's LP reissue and a late 60's SG special. Both of these had the stop bar bridge. From my memory the bridge studs were not staggered on those guitars. The compensation on the bridge was accomplished with set screws in the back of the stop bar.

These were not LP specials, I do not know whether the same would hold true for them. You might check to see whether the studs that are staggered on the ones you are looking at, or whether it is just more compensation on the stop bar via the set screws.

Do it as Mark suggests.

There is a difference between the Plain 50's bridge and the 60's which has raised compensated ridges.

The 50's style needs more slant and the stud holes end up off centre from the body centreline too.

Having just looked at a picture of a VOS 1957 Les Paul Junior from Gibson Custom shop, I will have to agree that the studs are indeed staggered. Excuse my previous misinformation.

Thanks everybody! I think the tailpiece and shim idea is great. I'll use that most likely. A couple of friends have Juniors so I'll probably measure as well and see how mauch variation there might be. I'll try to remember to post results.

Be careful about selecting a bridge for your LP Jr. There are an abundance of bridges for sale from a number of sources that are designed to compensate for a wound G-string instead of a plain G-string. The retailers make no mention of this in the item description. You have a lot of options for a bridge. Compensaton for a wound G-string bridge, compensation for a plain G-string, adjustable compensation for the E and B strings, adjustable for G,B, and E strings and more. There is the Leo Quan style retrofit style which sort-of has a type of tunematic set of adjustable saddles for all of the strings.

My favorite for a compensated bridge is this one: http://www.allparts.com/store/tailpieces-stop-tailpieces-tp-3403-010,Product.asp

However, not all is what it seems to be when it comes to the need for compensation. I have used this bridge which has no compensation at all and found that my intonation could be set using just the stud adjusters to within one or two cents: http://www.allparts.com/store/tailpieces-stop-tailpieces-tp-3407-001,Product.asp

What I believe is happening with these old style bridges is that the string follows the gentle curve of the bridge without having any true break point or break angle and due to a reduction of break angle, the need for compensation is greatly reduced. I'm very happy with the intonation this bridge gives.

Another thing, The price of the wrap around bridge/tailpiece is disproportionately higher than the price of plain tailpiece designed to be used with a tunematic bridge. The only major difference is that the combination bridge/tailpiece has the adjustable allenhead screws to fine tune the overall intonation. If you get a featherweight aluminum tailpiece, its a very simple procedure to drill and tap your own 4-40 threads. You can also drill and tap your own Tone-Pros style locking screws. The set screws are available from McMasterCarr. You need a #43 drill bit and a 4-40 tap. The McMasterCarr part# for a 4-40 X 3/8" stainless steel set screw is 99553A156 for a pack of ten.

Here is a link to my LP Jr webshots album. It may give you some ideas. I love these guitars.

http://community.webshots.com/album/569321363xlHWCQ?start=0

Thanks Mark, I want to use one of the non-compensated bridges from stew-mac. I think these already have allen screws for adjustment. What measurement do you use for the stud on the treble side and what angle do you set the other stud at?

I'm too chicken to use actual measurements. Generally I've found (and please chime in if anyone thinks that I'm providing misleading info), that the high E-string needs to be very close to the actual scale length as measured from the nut to the crown of the 12th fret and then repeating this as the distance from the crown of the 12th fret to the breakpoint of the bridge. The low E-string is about 3/16th" farther away or you might call it "offset".

Get youself a three-inch long 1/4" brass bar. Brass is easy to work with -- so easy that its worth buying some from McMasterCarr. Drill six 1/8" holes to make the total spread of the six holes 2 inches wide. Drill two additional 1/8" holes on each end in-line with the others. Use 320 grit sand paper to round off the sharp edges. Get as technical or fancy as you want but use some sort of steel wire to make a stirrup by running the wire through the two outer holes and creating a loop around the strap button so you end up with a sudo-trapeze stop tail piece -- be creative. You've got a place to anchor the strings so all you need to do is fabricate some blocks and shims to put under your bridge and you can string up the guitar completely using your actual bridge while it sits on these blocks and move it all about to find the best intonation and string alignment vs the edge of the fretboard. You'll also be able to mark out the string positions to align your pickup pole pieces. Make the stirrup as short as posible (or necessary due to string length) to increase the break angle so there is sufficient pressure over the bridge to keep it in place. You'll discover that you can actually play the guitar this way and its a good way to find any unanticpiated glitches before you start boring holes into your guitar. A very cool accessory tool would be a couple of short round shafts that fit the receiving hooks at each end of the bridge and had a 1/8" hole down the center so you could precisely drill pilot holes for the enevitable drill bit size of the anchors.

As an added tip, I would mark the anchor posts so that each of the two allen head compensation adjustment screws were engaged about 1/16th of an inch so you always will have some compensation adjustment leyway.

Its worth the effort to build yourself this sudo tail piece. The stirrup is replaceable for any unique situation you may encounter in the future and there is no better way to set the bridge in place other than to do while using an electronic tuner and actually measuring the intonation accurately.

It took two days but I finally get it: sudo = pseudo.

...you say potatoe and I say "potatoe" --- tomatoe tomatoe...

But the biggestest question is, Do Harley Davidsons have an accent when they are driven in England?

potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe...

Mark apparently takes spelling lessons from Dan Quayle.

But the biggestest question is, Do Harley Davidsons have an accent when they are driven in England?

potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-potatoe-

Nope... They still sound like a lawnmower in desperate need of a new sparkplug.... and have about the same horsepower!

Hehehehe!!!!!

Potatow