Narrow Spaced Saddles for Fender/Gotoh 201

[swarfrat]

Both my 5 string and my squirp have absurdly wide string spacing. On the 5 it's a lot more noticeable. Unfortunately they're both finished instruments with the round saddle bridges. A quick search of the interwebs didn't turn up anything useful (except for one person who DIY, and I do have a small lathe. (I don't have good setup for cross drilling round stock though.)

Does anyone sell saddles which will take a traditional Fender 19mm spaced bridge and allow you to set up something closer to 16-17.5mm spacing? (BTW, the Schaller, while adjustable, appears to max out at 17mm, which is narrower than the "narrow"  Takeuchi bridge.

 

[swarfrat]

They were cheap enough I bought one of each.

They're both 16.5mm spacing.

And a set of Tapewound strings. I haven't had any bites on my 5 banger, so I figured I'd at least put some tapewounds on there and might as well try to swap out the bridge for something narrower.  If successful, I might be tempted to try making the amply generous P-bass into a crowded 5 string. I figured I could probably do it for no more than the price of a new neck ($190ish) and possibly just stick 5 strings on the 1 3/4" nut.

 

[swarfrat]

I must be the only narrow p-bass fan out there. The bent plate 5 string bridge with 16.5mm spacing arrived. My 5 string has a 4 screw pattern, not a 5 screw, so I'm still waiting to see if the cast bridge fits closer. Else I may end up making two bridge plates.

Here's the lineup on my squirp.

I tried a direct saddle swap, but the angle is too great and the saddles tend to pull straight anyway. But it was $8 and I got 16.5mm saddles, so that's still a step better than just $8 worth of education. I got a brake and a drill press. I even have an XY table but it's far too big for my crappy benchtop drill press (which isn't saying much).

 

[swarfrat]

The heavy cast bridge came yesterday, and it's smaller than the existing screw holes on my five string. That one was $10 worth of education. I'm thinking the two choices are either plug and drill the body for the new bent plate bridge, or make a new plate and drill. The biggest hurdle there is actually finishing it - I could saw, drill and bend a plate, but chrome would be too expensive. I used to work in manufacturing, I might could ask a friend to drop it in the cold black line on the next batch, but that's not a given.  Aluminum could be polished up raw, but I don't think a bent plate is a good design for aluminum and I no longer have a mill.

I guess plug and drill is the best route.