Callaham Vintage strat bridge normal or narrow

[Mark W]

I am ordering a Callaham Vintage Stat bridge and I have an 1 11/16" nut which is what I have grown accustomed to.
I noticed he makes a narrow model as well as the normal spaced one. The narrower one is for humbuckers and positioning the E strings further from the edge of the neck.
I am going to be using single coil pickups so I assume I should use the wider spaced bridge, or does it matter?
I noticed my son's mexi-strat has a little narrower string spacing and he has a humbucker in his bridge position. The strings don't line up with the poles on the neck pickup.

My concern is the strings being too close to the edge of the neck verses the strings not being over the poles when bending notes.

Anybody have any experience with the wider and narrower bridge and any recommendations or concerns???

 

[TBurst Std]

I have the narrow on mine. MIM body and a Warmoth 1 11/16 boatneck. Strings line up fine on my Fralin SCs, actually better than the non-narrow one I had..

 

[tfarny]

I would worry more about the strings too close to the edge than not lining up over the pole pieces. For one thing, it's not even possible to line up with both the strat bridge and the neck / middle at the same time. My Callaham wide spaced lines up very well with the neck / mid but is a bit too wide for the bridge pieces, and the strings are just a hair closer to the edge than I would prefer. I do like the roominess though.

 

[Mark W]

Thanks for the input.
I called Callaham's (some of the friendliest people I've dealt with) and they seemed to think it was no problem with the narrower spacing, saying pretty much the same thing as is posted here.
I had ordered a normal size one but I re-ordered a narrower one and they said I could just send one of them back.
Can't wait to hear this and my H/SRV pickups they're sending  :guitaristgif:

 

[bbl4ck]

Thanks for the input.
I called Callaham's (some of the friendliest people I've dealt with) and they seemed to think it was no problem with the narrower spacing, saying pretty much the same thing as is posted here.
I had ordered a normal size one but I re-ordered a narrower one and they said I could just send one of them back.
Can't wait to hear this and my H/SRV pickups they're sending  :guitaristgif:

Sounds like a nice company to deal with.  Post your feelings of those pick-ups when you get em working.
I have been wanting to try those myself.
:rock-on:

 

[TBurst Std]

Thanks for the input.
I called Callaham's (some of the friendliest people I've dealt with) and they seemed to think it was no problem with the narrower spacing, saying pretty much the same thing as is posted here.
I had ordered a normal size one but I re-ordered a narrower one and they said I could just send one of them back.
Can't wait to hear this and my H/SRV pickups they're sending  :guitaristgif:

I had the wide one and the strings were close to the edge. Got the narrow when I was re-necking the guitar and really didn't notice that the strings were closer together while playing, but definitely noticed I had more room on the edges (no more worries about over-active hand vibrato yanking an E off the edge).