Gotoh bridge right over tremolo hole?

[Cederick]

Would the Gotoh bridge fit right over the tremolo hole on a guitar with vintage trem rout? It seems to be a little larger than the hole! And the screw holes are on the edges so they should be able to be screwed in on the edges around the hole

Many hole repeats here hahaha

 

[Cagey]

Gotoh makes a wide variety of fixed and vibrato bridges, so the question is impossible to answer. But, Warmoth has a page full of bridge routing/dimensional data here that you might be able to use to compare some styles. If you need more detail than they provide, sometimes retailers such as Stewart-MacDonald will provide manufacturer's drawings. Or, you can always go to the manufacturer's site directly and they should give you enough detail to make a comparison or decision.

 

[Cederick]

I'm talking about this one

 

[bagman67]

In the grand scheme of things, why not just get a body drilled for a hardtail?

 

[Cederick]

I have a shitty guitar body lying around that I wanna get some use out of, and instead of putting a new crappy vintage trem in that crappy poplar "soloist" body I wanna hardtail it as easy as possible  :glasses9:

 

[bagman67]

You might be better off installing a crappy trem, and blocking it.  That way at least it will make use of the body as currently configured.  You KNOW that will work, and won't run the risk of buying a part that might not work.

 

[Cagey]

I'm talking about this one...

I still don't know exactly what it is. Need a model number to speak intelligently about it. But, don't rush off to find one; that design won't work anyway. It wants a string-through body, and if you have any kind of vibrato bridge routing there'd be no body under the bridge to run strings through. If you want to use a hardtail bridge, it's going to have to be one that will avoid the existing routing as well as be a top-feed part. I'm not sanguine about your finding such a beast. Scartozi wanted the same thing, and had to design one of his own and have it machined. DangerousR6 did the work - you might want to see if they're interested in doing it again. It was a nice part.

Bagman's idea is probably more practical, though. You can get one of those old-style 6 point bridges fairly cheap. Here's one...

at Guitar Fetish for between $25- $35, depending on color/style. Install it, then block it so it won't move and Poof! It's a hardtail!

 

[Cederick]

The string balls should be big enough to not slip through the stringthrough holes in the bridge 

 

[bagman67]

That's probably true, but despite that, it's not clear you'll have enough wood on either side of the cutout for the trem block for the screws to hold while also placing the saddles where they will intonate correctly.


From here, it looks like you're committed to an iffy solution, when a sound one exists.  Just sayin'.

 

[Cagey]

The string balls should be big enough to not slip through the stringthrough holes in the bridge 

Perhaps. But, then assuming you could mount it the way you want to, you'd be putting a severe angle on the wrap end, and maybe even ending up with wrap on the saddles. In the one case you could suffer frequent broken strings, in the other who knows? Plus, even if that bridge could be mounted in such a way that it wouldn't pull off the first time you strung it and would cover the old routing cavity and screw holes, would it end up in the right place for intonation?

If you can get that bridge super-cheap and don't mind throwing it in the Drawer of Misfit Parts in the event it doesn't work, then you could find out a lot of stuff for certain. Or, there's a $25 solution that's requires less effort and is guaranteed to work.