Doing a little experiment... to find out how much of a roll the bridge and strings make on tone, I'm going to put a wood bridge (the bridge itself, not just the bridge base) and flatwounds on my Hot Rod... see how jazzy sounding I can get her. Where can I find a wood bridge that would fit?

Stew-mac sells one for $20, but if I could get a Gretsch-approved one, that would be great... http://www.stewmac.com/shop...

Here's one from allparts... http://www.allparts.com/Ros...

Might be easier to play around with the cap values in your mudswitch to find a tone you like. That is if your guitar has filtertrons and a mudswitch. If you have dynas, try turning the tone knob.

It's a hot rod. No mud switch, no tone knob.

I'm sure you know that the bridge base needs to be fitted to the top to accurately give a bridge it's due.
It will change your tone dramatically. Depends on what you are going for, but it can be a cool sound. Are you in the USA? If so, PM me your info & I'll send you a bridge, if you'll would post your findings. We'll call it a fair trade

If you want to make your life easier, give me your string & post spacing. I can make you the bridge to fit the base you have.

Archtop is DA MAN!!

PM sent...

Let us know how it turns out. If a stainless steel sounds different from a brass one there should be a noticable change too. Hope the use of the bigsby will not file the slots down too soon before you come to any conclusion.

Clippers had wood bridges

I'm anxious to here about this, too. I did the opposite. I went from a wooden bridge to a Gretsch RBB on my Godin 5th Ave. I gained a sharpness (and more immediate attack) I call metal-ness, loosing that softer "woody" tone. That's what I expect you to gain with this operation.

I use a wooden bridge and flatwounds on my Ibanez Custom Artcore AF-125 and I really like it.

The AF-125 came with a wooden bridge and a tune-o-matic. I like both and switch them around from time to time.

I have never tried to but the Ibanez wooden bridge on a Gretsch bridge base. I don't know if it would fit or not.

If Archtop's generous offer doesn't work for some reason, perhaps looking for an Ibanez bridge would be an option.

Good luck on your quest. It sounds like a cool idea to me.

Dylan

I won't use the bigsby... This is just an experiment to see how much of the tone, especially acoustically, is affected by bridge material. I had a TOM, now have a Compton TI chambered, which sound very close to the TOM, wondering how much a wood bridge and flat wounds would help the hot rod sound more like a jazz arch top.

I've played with this a few times myself. One example: I put a wood bridge, flatties and a cello style tailpiece on an ES175. It darkened and softened up quite a bit!

...of course you realize you should just procure a Country Club for your Jazz endevours.

Oh a new guitar is definitely in the works! This is part of my experiment to see if a thinner bodied laminate maple top is capable if giving me what I want. If not, I'll probably get an epi broadway... Spruce top, deeper body.

And if the wooden bridge and flats DOES work, I'll put the hot road back to rockabilly specs and maybe try one of those maple topped Xavieres. Nice grain on those, mostly good reviews. And because it's cheap I can afford some nice pups for it.

Like this?

DAMMIT TUBS!!!

Btw... How old is that broadway, and did it come that color or has it darkened? Almost all of them I've seen have been whiter than that one.

Did somebody say Broadway?

It's about three years old, it has darkened down a little, there is a pale shadow from the scratchplate and the Bigsby. But mostly the colour in the picture is off, the Gretsch looks flourescent. I play it every day so it's never been in a case. It's closer in colour to this picture.

i went from a melita bridge with plastic saddles to a solid rosewood compensated bridge on my country club and havent ever looked back.

i'd also be interested to hear how it sounds, so please post a follow-up. good luck!

parabar,

same question to that i asked tubs, regarding the dark color of your epi. BTW love the creme knobs, I plan on doing that too.

I love those carousel knobs, I couldn't find them any where when I was putting my Broadway together. The closest I came to finding them was some original bakelite radio knobs. But after seeing some close up I changed my mind. They aren't really deep enough but man do they look cool. In the end I've put Gibson ES250 style knobs on.

Hey... just doing some reading... some people were saying wood bridges remove the ground from the strings... but... archtop bridges aren't grounded like a solidbody bridge right? I mean, archtop strings aren't grounded anyway.

Which now makes me understand why so many archtop players say they like humbuckers because there's "no buzz" (I could never figure this out, until just now... with ungrounded strings, you'll have the buzz if you use single coils, with no way to get rid of it.)

I ground mine. I use shielding tape on the under side of the tailpiece. BTW, the bridge will be finished in the Morn. PM me an address to send it to. Hyde

archtop bridges aren't grounded like a solidbody bridge right? I mean, archtop strings aren't grounded anyway

Should be via the metal tail piece resp. Bigsby, there is a wire from circuit ground fed through to under the tail piece/bigsby mounting plate on the outside of the guitar, don't ever let it slip inside should you have the tail piece off, can be a bugger to get back through without de-soldering and feeding it through from the outside again ;) .

parabar,

same question to that i asked tubs, regarding the dark color of your epi. BTW love the creme knobs, I plan on doing that too.

Hey ruger9 ---

Mine is an Elitist Broadway, which uses higher quality wood (and a carved solid spruce top instead of the standard laminated spruce) than the standard ones (which are also quite nice though). It came that color as an NOS model made in 2004. The white carousel knobs come standard on the Elitist Broadway (I'm actually thinking of changing them out to gold bell knobs).