Using bolts instead of screws to fix the bridge to the body

[DaveT]

Bolt-on necks are called 'bolt-on' yet really they are 'screw-on'.
I have replaced the screws on my cheap Tele copy with stainless steel inserts and stainless bolts. I made a before and after recording and you can hear that using real bolts sounds better. Whether that would be true for a good quality guitar I am not in a position to say!

Does anybody have any comments about the 5 screws used on Music Man guitars? Mere product differentiation or a real good thing?

Then we come to the Tele bridge, mine is held on by 4 screws.
Wouldn't inserts and bolts work better?
And what about fitting a 5th bolt underneath the top E string in the space at the end of the bridge left clear by the angled pickup?

 

[swarfrat]

Unless you run your bolts all the way through the body, using an bolt and insert on the face is essentially turning the bolt into a bigger screw. A guitar neck may come off a few dozen times over the life of a guitar if you're pretty neurotic, but the bridge probably only comes off once if you refinish and once if you replace it with something else.

Still you'd think with all the pulled up electric guitar bridges we see every day, you'd think someone would have solved this scourge of the electric guitar we've been saddled with the past 60 years or so.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I don't think it'd matter much with a Tele bridge, simplly because they anchor in the body with ferrules.

 

[DaveT]

My cheap Tele copy is used for trying out various options before I damage my credit card with Warmoth... So yes, the bridge has been on and off a few times!
Using bolts on the neck improved the guitar, I wondered if bolts on the bridge would?
Now I'm going to have to do it myself and report back aren't I?

I don't think it'd matter much with a Tele bridge, simply because they anchor in the body with ferrules.

Possibly, but if some is good more is always better! Works when making your bike go faster so it must work on guitars too!

 

[Great Ape]

More bolts just makes your bike HEAVIER, so it WON'T go faster! :toothy10:

 

[swarfrat]

Re ferrules, I hadn't even considered that.

In the case of a string through bridge, the screws basically keep the bridge from falling off or losing position when there are no strings on.  100-120 lbs of tension with a right angle and very small lever arms mean it aint going much of nowhere.

 

[Cagey]

My cheap Tele copy is used for trying out various options before I damage my credit card with Warmoth... So yes, the bridge has been on and off a few times!
Using bolts on the neck improved the guitar, I wondered if bolts on the bridge would?
Now I'm going to have to do it myself and report back aren't I?

I don't think it'd matter much with a Tele bridge, simply because they anchor in the body with ferrules.

Possibly, but if some is good more is always better! Works when making your bike go faster so it must work on guitars too!

I'm a huge fan of threaded inserts on necks, and have installed roughly a bajillion of them. I can't really make any claim as to the tonal improvement they make as 99% of the time there's no before/after comparison to be made. It makes sonic sense to do it according to what we know about physics and it has utility, plus it's a cheap mod, so why not? Even if you have someone like me do it, it's only $25. If you have the tools, you can do it yourself for roughly $10. It's a no-brainer.

But, I can't see any reason to do it on a flush-mount bridge. Electric guitar bodies are almost exclusively made of hardwood. The fasteners that hold the bridge on are under a shear load, rather than a torsional one. That is, all the stress is side-pulling rather than twisting/stretching. So, the object of the exercise is to hold it in place, which wood screws will do quite nicely. Any vibrational absorption is going to be due to the wood's characteristics rather than the fasteners.

If you want to hear the difference bridge mounting schemes can make, have a body drilled for a Tune-O-Matic (or any post-mounted bridge) and play around with that, then replace it with something that flush mounts tight to the body. It's night and day.