String touching intonation screw heads on Mustang

glitchathon · Post by **glitchathon** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:27 am

I finally found out what the rattle is on my Mustang bridge. Looks like the string is real close or touching the head of the intonation screw on my low E string. And I get a buzz. Is this a common problem? I will try to put some felt or tape in between I guess. Any other good solutions for this?

serfx · Post by **serfx** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:54 am

i got around that issue by placing my bridge with the intonation screw heads facing the neck.. and then re-setting it up.. possibly not sa easy as a little bit of tape.

glitchathon · Post by **glitchathon** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:56 am

serfx wrote:i got around that issue by placing my bridge with the intonation screw heads facing the neck.. and then re-setting it up.. possibly not sa easy as a little bit of tape.

i might do that actually. would you say it is much easier to get at the intonation screws that way? if so, this would solve two problems.

Haze · Post by **Haze** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 5:03 am

i've always set up the intonation screws with the screw head facing the headstock, easy to get to, no issues with hitting the strings

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 12:14 pm

I had this happen on my Jaguar, with the low E screw hitting the string. I just dremelled off the last 1/8" of the screw and I don't have that problem anymore.

Dice · Post by **Dice** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:31 pm

I have a '69 Les Paul which has done the same thing for over 40 years. There is now a deep groove in the intonation screw head and the string sits nicely in it!

Oddly, my Mustang doesn't touch the screw heads even though I made it a hard tail (and the break angle over the saddles is even steeper).

Flipping the bridge around will probably do the trick for you, though.

glitchathon · Post by **glitchathon** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 4:02 pm

cool i'll try tape for now and maybe flip the bridge next time i change strings.

glitchathon · Post by **glitchathon** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 3:49 pm

fixed it by raising the tailpiece. I had it as far down as possible (giving minimum clearance for the strings to run underneath). It was also at full tension so it tilted back and acted almost like a hardtail. But now I moved it forward a bit so that it is in a proper position (posts vertical) and the wire no longer buzzes on the screw. Might take a small hit with sustain and tuning stability so I will try this for awhile and see how i like it.