Fender Bass Saddle Screws

[Sonic Mountain]

OK.. maybe a bit of a dumb question. I had an acquaintance bring his 2012 US Fender Jazz bass around this afternoon for a setup. Someone has been fiddling with it and it was pretty horrible to play. An issue I found is that a couple of the grub screws for string height adjustment in the bridge were badly flogged out. I'm guessing from someone using metic tools on what I think is an imperial guitar. We managed to get that sorted good enough for now, but we'd really like to change them all for fresh ones.

Most of the local places only seem to stock metric. And on some of the US sites I can't seem to search by model, but rather need to know the part serial number.

Does anyone happen to know which ones I should be ordering? OR how I identify which part number I am looking for?

Quick pic on the slab...



We did manage to make a huge improvement, but there is still work to do. I've asked him to take it and play it for a week or so and let all the changes settle in. The bow in the neck was enormous and I just wanted to creep up on that adjustment.

[wazkelly]

Hi Sonic, presume grub screws have an allen key head? Specialist nut & bolt trade stores might be able to help as you would be surprised how many other things (automotive/audio too) that use similar allen key head threaded bits. Toowoomba is a big enough regional town to have one or two stores that may have what you need.

Alternatively you could canibalise another US built bridge if one was handy or just simply order new saddles.

Cheers, waz

[Simon Barden]

Try Realparts. They have imperial and metric sizes in stock.

https://www.realparts.com.au/screws-...ess-steel.html

[Sonic Mountain]

Thanks Guys,

@ Waz: yeah the plan is to order new ones, might end up having to get the whole saddle. We did try to nick one from the two other bridges I have here but they both appear to be metric, or at least a much finer thread than what is in the fender.

@ Simon: yes, I've been looking through that site and there are imperial sizes for 6 strings, but I can't see the bass guitar variant (Unless they are the same?) - your link is to a six sting grub screw. I don't have the guitar here now to check against the specs. I stupidly assumed they would be easy to find for this particular guitar.

[Simon Barden]

D'oh. Misread it. They have slot headed grub screws, not hex key types. Or hex type in black.

[Sonic Mountain]

All good man, its a bit baffling when you don't have them in front of you.

However! I think these may be the right ones, not sure how I missed them yesterday. Its definitely a US built guitar so this seems right.

https://www.realparts.com.au/screws-...ht-screws.html

[Simon Barden]

Some silver ones in Europe. https://www.thomann.de/gb/fender_std...ddle_screw.htm

From the Allparts site, the imperial ones look to be 6-32 screws. You probably need to take one of them off the bass and measure its length to get ones the right size rather than too small or too long if you get generic ones.

The metric screws are M3s.

[Sonic Mountain]

Yeah I'm pretty sure the 6/32 is the right one. We did pull a saddle apart, and while I didn't take any measurements (Stupidly) that seems about right. I'm going to suck it and see. The one that's flogged can be adjusted with a small screw driver. But the guitar owner wants everything 'just-so' which is fair enough with such an expensive instrument.

[wazkelly]

Thanks Guys,

@ Waz: yeah the plan is to order new ones, might end up having to get the whole saddle. We did try to nick one from the two other bridges I have here but they both appear to be metric, or at least a much finer thread than what is in the fender.

@ Simon: yes, I've been looking through that site and there are imperial sizes for 6 strings, but I can't see the bass guitar variant (Unless they are the same?) - your link is to a six sting grub screw. I don't have the guitar here now to check against the specs. I stupidly assumed they would be easy to find for this particular guitar.

Very expensive and a full set ends up dearer than a whole new bridge.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[dave.king1]

6/32 is 4.76 mm so an alternative could be tapping them for 5mm

Depends on how picky you want to be for originality