70s Fender bridge question

[BOD2]

The saddles have possibly been replaced at some point in the past. Perhaps the owner preferred that type and swapped them ?

As for the bridge position, it's possible that the owner has relocated the bridge at some point, moving it backwards. Perhaps there was an intonation issue with a particular guage or string type and this was his solution ?

You could easily check this by removing the bridge and checking to see if there is another row of screw holes underneath. If the bridge was moved backwards then any original holes would be covered by the new bridge position.

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='BOD2' timestamp='1343398629' post='1750184']
The saddles have possibly been replaced at some point in the past. Perhaps the owner preferred that type and swapped them ?

As for the bridge position, it's possible that the owner has relocated the bridge at some point, moving it backwards. Perhaps there was an intonation issue with a particular guage or string type and this was his solution ?

You could easily check this by removing the bridge and checking to see if there is another row of screw holes underneath. If the bridge was moved backwards then any original holes would be covered by the new bridge position.
[/quote]

That was what i was thinking, but the saddles and the backplate don't look original, the saddles looking 60s and the backplate 80s or later. All very odd.

There's only one set of holes and no evidence of another type of bridge ever being on it. The bridge position is as it left the factory, I've seen other 72 and 73 Jazzes that are the same. I'm wondering if they had a jig at the factory that was set out from the bridge pickup position, when they moved the pickup back in the 70s the bridge went with it, with longer intonation screws to compensate. This seems to be fixed by the transition period of 74.

All a bit of a mystery!

Edited July 27, 2012 by Fat Rich

[discreet]

[quote name='Fat Rich' timestamp='1343398624' post='1750183']
ikay has put some in the post for me, what a gent! Thanks again to everyone for their help on this, I'd still be fumbling around on ebay trying to track these things down. [/quote]

Sweet! The mighty networking power of Basschat is truly +++AWESOME+++ !!

[Jazz bridge]

On 25/07/2012 at 18:28, Fat Rich said:

I have a 1987 jazz, it was made at the corona factory. California strait out of the custom depth, it was purchased by a very well known person, when I got hold of it it had been customised further with Seymore Duncan active pickups and abalone evading from the heel of the neck round to the heel at the bottom, it sounds awesome and I took the bridge cover off to change the strings to flats, I noticed that the bridge saddles were threaded and I thought "what's going on ere also the tuning pegs work opposite to all my other bass's, well I started to investigate and first I contacted every one who had owned this bass (except the famous person) and I discovered that this was the only extra mods that had been done, eventually I contacted fender themselves and they told me everything I needed to know, they said it left the factory with the theades Bridge saddles and the reverse tuning pegs, I replaced the bridge with a wilkinson one which lined up perfectly in the original screw holes, I have kept the threaded one though and it seemed easier to set the intonation so my point is that the custom shop might have fitted the threaded bridge from new.  Hope this helps my friend. 

Phil the berss mon

 

[Jazz bridge]

On 26/07/2012 at 12:38, discreet said:

[quote name='The Bass Doc' timestamp='1343302366' post='1748513']
Oh dear... I've just had to explain to Mrs BD that I've been on Basschat discussing G-strings and longer screws...[/quote]

And we haven't even started on fingering, yet. http://basschat.co.uk/public/style_emoticons/%3C#EMO_DIR%23%3E/biggrin.png

On 25/07/2012 at 18:28, Fat Rich said:

I have a 1987 jazz, it was made at the corona factory. California strait out of the custom depth, it was purchased by a very well known person, when I got hold of it it had been customised further with Seymore Duncan active pickups and abalone evading from the heel of the neck round to the heel at the bottom, it sounds awesome and I took the bridge cover off to change the strings to flats, I noticed that the bridge saddles were threaded and I thought "what's going on ere also the tuning pegs work opposite to all my other bass's, well I started to investigate and first I contacted every one who had owned this bass (except the famous person) and I discovered that this was the only extra mods that had been done, eventually I contacted fender themselves and they told me everything I needed to know, they said it left the factory with the theades Bridge saddles and the reverse tuning pegs, I replaced the bridge with a wilkinson one which lined up perfectly in the original screw holes, I have kept the threaded one though and it seemed easier to set the intonation so my point is that the custom shop might have fitted the threaded bridge from new.  Hope this helps my friend. 

Phil the berss mon