sweet 16 bridge intonation

[heltz]

I recently picked up a sweet 16 with rounds on it .

I put ghs elevens on it, had a frustrating time getting the intonation right.  the bridge is now at a noticeable angle; the treble side is closest to the nut.  Looking closer I noticed the holes in the bridge itself are much larger than the the pins on the adjusting wheels.  (I have a lot of slop).

is there supposed to be bushings in the bridge to make this a tighter fit?  I think I need some heritage parts.

[Windstring]

Hello Heltz, I think you may be fretting a little too much (apologies for the pun). Floating bridges on archtops can usually be moved around to achieve reasonably good intonation, no matter what. The "slop" you mention is trivial in comparison to the movements you could make to the bridge itself. I have several guitars with bridges in various states of "looseness" and I managed to get them all to sound fine. You could try to find some small plastic bushings at Ace Hardware but I don't think it will make much difference. Remember the old rule for achieving "compromise" in view of the tempered scale: at the open E chord, try flattening the E string and the B string by a few cents to get "in-tuneness" over the whole fretboard. Cheers, and Merry Christmas.

[heltz]

thank you for the info.

:)merry xmas,

heltz

[heltz]

I forgot one little thing.  to measure the string length.  ( the vibrating part)  set the bridge at the guitar spec (in this case 25.5 in).  I allowed a little flatness on the e string 12th fret and everything worked out perfectly.  Now the bridge looks normal again.  thanks again and merry xmas