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Thread: EX-4: Bridge Position / Scale length problem

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  1. #7
    Moderator fender3x's Avatar
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    You have been doing your homework! One thing that I think you can do with your chart is to throw out the measurements on the necks that are less than 431 from the nut to the 12th fret. Those are short scale basses. Yours is standard (34") scale. That is pretty good verification that the 34" scale basses tend to intonate at 362mm or just slightly more. If it were me, I would want the low B to be able to travel to at least where the Charvel is.

    Would it be better to move the neck or the bridge? Either way something is going to show with a clear finish. With a solid color finish you can make it so neither shows. With a dark finish not much will show, either way. With similar kinds of issues, I can say that I have finished with a solid color, which is the easy way out ;-)

    The 9mm spacer is not enough for the Charvel or the Cort. Neither is 12mm if you want to be able to intonate like the Charvel. It might be enough for a low D but not a low B. You might be able get the neck out to 16mm without problems. If you drill the neck carefully and tighten carefully you only need a few mm clearance for the screws.

    That said, if it were me, I would probably move the bridge. You want to string the bass with very low strings. So, if you had a G string you'd want it to intonate at 862. For a low B you'd want it to go back 1.5 cm or an mm or two more. The Babicz has tons of travel so why not have it?

    The only disadvantage to moving the bridge is that you need some way of stabilizing your drill so that you make the hole exactly perpendicular to the body. Also you lose access to, maybe, one fret.

    There are a couple of potential advantages to moving the bridge. You can position the bridge to get the maximum travel that you might want from the saddles. Since the neck won't extend as far, you may have slightly less neck dive.

    One possibility that also occurs to me is that you might not have holes to fill if you move the bridge. You did the right thing by getting rid of the kit's 3-point bridge. It's junk. But it came with some ferrules and mounting screws. Once you move the Babicz, you might be able to put in these ferrules and posts..or other large screws. I think they would look like they were part of the bridge, and no one but you would know that they are not ;-) If anyone notices you can tell them that it is drilled for a 34" neck and a 32.25" neck (like the Aria's). Maybe one day you will want to convert it to short scale... ;-)
    Last edited by fender3x; 06-05-2023 at 04:37 AM.

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