Hard Tail Bridges for Strat

[TheBlackStrat]

Hello to all, I'm new here , but I've built a few guitars over the years. Its been awhile but I've had this guitar project in my mind for a few years and deceided to go ahead with the plan.

The guitar in question will be a hardtail Mahogany bodied strat. My first thought was to use just a regular vintage hardtail bridge with the Graph-tech String saver saddles. But I saw in a Stew-mac catalog where someone made a Brass saddle and bridge plate hardtail. I remember in the 80's and early 90's there where a lot of people who where high on Brass bridge for the extra mass and sustain. Is it really worth the hype? Will it effect the tone of the guitar in a positive way?

Thanks for your input.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Stewmac has the Hipshot hardtail bridges made of brass, and yes, brass = sustain for days.

The best vintage style strat trem I've ever owned was a mighty might, which was competely made of machined brass, with a heavy sustain block, & I've yet to find ANY locking trem that can hold a candle to it in terms of sustain.  Tuning ability is another issue, the Floyds do fine there.

The only other non-locking trem that came close to the old Mighty Mite was the early era PRS trems, which rather than conventional vintage style trems that have a sustain block and a base plate, the PRS of that era had a one piece machined brass bridge.  That's right, the base plate and sustain block were one complete machined piece, then the saddles were screwed in.  PRS stopped building them that way about 15 years ago or so.

 

[dbw]

It probably matters more on a trem than on a hardtail... seems like the trem would tend to lose energy to the springs, and a heavier bridge would stop that.  This is all speculation from me, though.  I know bass players love brass bridges, so maybe there's something to it, but it seems like your nut and neck will have a lot more effect on sustain.

 

[TheBlackStrat]

Thanks guys for your input, I appreciate it.

For the record I was planning on the neck being pretty standard strat stuff, maple neck with brazilian rosewood. For the nut material I was looking at either bone or graphite. I know bone is excellent, but I was thinking of the graphite for tuning issues while bending strings. I had a friend who had a Les Paul Classic a while back and was having problem keeping his G and B strings in tune. He finally ended up having our local luthier replace the nut with a graphite one. It cured his tuning problems and it didn't seem to effect his guitar tone any.

dbw, what you are saying about the trem type bridge & springs makes logical sense.

I think I will go ahead and get the brass Hipshot bridge from Stew-mac, if it doesn't work out I can always replace it with a vintage piece later.

Thanks again.