In a mad fit of seeing just what a current Tru-Arc 12" radius bridge might fit on, I went on a rampage.
First, I found a Tru-Arc can be installed in less than 7 minutes: loosen strings (don't remove), lift out old bridge, put Tru-Arc on posts, tighten strings to pitch, adjust bridge height, fine tune, and check intonation (you know you want to).
A pegwinder helps.
Next...voila, it worked in a surprising range of applications. I had the Aluminum Tru-Arc on:
• '04 Electromatic Double Jet
• '08 Electromatic Corvette
• '05 Iby Artcore AFS-75T
• '05-ish Epiphone MIK Casino
• '79-ish Gibson ES-335 with Bigsby
Four of those five have fixed bridges (all but the AFS-75T), and intonation was within cents, as stable by my Seiko tuner as with the original adjustable bridges. Most guitars have 11s; at least one has .0105s; one felt like 10s.
How did it sound? I hate to draw those conclusions for others, and will try to get before-and-after sound clips up.
The hardest fit was on the '04 Jet, whose bridge is functionally the same but different in detail from the one on the '08 Corvette. (The older Jet is Korean, the current solidbody Electros are Chinese; I'm sure different vendors are used for the bridges, and apparently slightly different mounting specs.)
There seems to be at least two different common post diameters in use across the industry. Gretschs and the guitars I tried tonight have post diameters around 3/16".
I checked out a Turser, some Agiles, and my Epi Wildkat – and their posts are larger.
I'm easily confident the Tru-Arc will work with the Ibanezes, Epis, and Gibsons – or what-have-you – with a 2-15/16 post spacing and the smaller-diamater posts. Anyone who'd like to try such guitars, order away.
I'll soon have prototypes of models with the larger-diameter post holes, at whatever spacing is required.
Some guitars, because of the relationship between neck-set height and bridge placement, also require a lower-profile bridge to get action down where it belongs. The '04 Electro Jet is one of these – I haven't tried a current model. But I WILL have a low-profile solution for guitars with that shallower angle.
To sum up, the current Tru-Arc models will directly fit on the bridge bases of:
• all pro-line Gretschs with Rocking Bar and Adjusta-matic bridges
• Electromatic Hollow 5120 and 5122
• current Electro Corvettes
• PROBably current Electro Jets (I assume that if they're coming from the same factory with the same bridges, they'll have the same specs)
I THINK they fit on:
• the Space Control base. (I don't have one to check; can someone confirm that its post spacing is 2-15/16?)
• earlier Electromatic 512x/DeArmond models with fixed stud-mounted bridges
They also fit any other guitar with 3/16" bridge-mounting posts at 2-15/16" center-to-center spacing, whether fixed or floating.
They do NOT fit on the stock bases for:
• Bigsy Compensated
• Synchro-sonic
Prototypes will be forthcoming for those bases as well, which means the entire current Gretsch line will be covered, including the 512x Electromatic series, which uses the Bigsby Compensated.
(The 335 was pretty surprising...)
