Introduction
Earlier this year I built a telecaster from parts and I tried my best to make it look traditional / vintage with my choice of parts. This meant using a three saddle bridge, which I knew was always going to be a compromise. The bridge I bought at the time was a cheap rip-off of a Gotoh modern style tele bridge, but with only the top loading option. Although it had been advertised as compensated, in practice I found it rather lacking.
Here's what the bridge looked like before I started..
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| The Original IOZ5 Steel Bridge |
I didn't have a lot of choice due to the limitations of the body and routing, but this unbranded top-loader style bridge does the job. My intention had always been to upgrade the saddles at a later date.
Upgrade Time
Much of the electrics and hardware came from Northwest Guitars, I'm not endorsing them, they don't sponsor me, but they seem to be a good retailer for parts in the UK. I found they stocked just the thing I wanted, compensated brass saddles. They are essentially unbranded, low cost, and identical to Wilkinson Vintage Compensated saddles.
They arrived a few days later in a simple ziplock bag..
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| Compensated Brass Telecaster Saddles |
They have been nicely machined, have shorter height screws and mounting bolts than those I have fitted, but the screw threads match perfectly. Also if you look closely you will see that one of the saddles is different to the other two. This surprised me at first (Northwests' photo showed them all the same), so I had to do a quick look on the web to see this was correct.
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| Odd one out goes in the middle! |
The reason for this inconsistency is that the middle saddle caters for both a wound and unwound string. Northwest suggest if you are using a wound G then this middle saddle can be flipped over, but for now I'm going to assume the manufacturer knew what they were doing.
Fitting The Saddles
Installation was simply a case of loosening each pair of strings, marking the approximate saddle location with a bit of masking tape and then swapping them out. Even if you take your time, you'll be done in 10 minutes. (remembering the odd one goes in the middle)
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| Compensated Saddles Fitted |
Then it was just a case of getting my tuner out and re-setting the intonation. You soon start to see the two diagonal lines pattern you expect to see on a bridge and I've gotta say, with these new saddles fitted, you really can get intonation close to perfect.
It's amazing how much better a guitar sounds when it's in tune as you go up the neck.
An additional benefit with the shorter height screws is that they don't poke up so high, nor are they as sharp as the previous ones. All-in it's a cheap and very positive improvement to my guitar.
