in love

GreenKnee · Post by **GreenKnee** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 5:54 am

That's a lot of screws covering a small area! Is this the White Pawn Shop Mustang? It is a lot nicer than our red or blue (boring!!).

Someone needs to transplant the electronics onto a normal Mustang, mmmmmm

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:08 am

GreenKnee wrote:That's a lot of screws covering a small area! Is this the White Pawn Shop Mustang? It is a lot nicer than our red or blue (boring!!).

Someone needs to transplant the electronics onto a normal Mustang, mmmmmm

I am basically wanting to do that onto a Jag-stang. Unfortunately the pickups are hard to come by at the moment. I love an all white guitar, though CAR and LPB are nice.

Loco3 · Post by **Loco3** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:28 am

Does look nice, love me lots of (functional) hardware, but I think I'd probably break a finger on that toggle switch, shortly before ripping it out...

kypdurron · Post by **kypdurron** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 11:04 am

I played a pawn shop mustang in a shop, and it was really good. very versatile, good sounds, well made, and a thing of beauty. it actually even felt like a legit Mustang. The Fender Japan guys definitely know their shit. I mean, I wasn't too crazy about it when I first read about it. But when you play it and you like well made Fender-style guitars, you cannot not like it.

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 2:07 pm

i love the shitty strat saddles!!! they are the same ones that got rusted to fuck on my (and everyone elses) super sonic.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:09 pm

robroe wrote:i love the shitty strat saddles!!! they are the same ones that got rusted to fuck on my (and everyone elses) super sonic.

I can verify, the saddles on my SS are rusted as shit. I also lost the grub screws on the low E saddle and no shop here has those Jap threaded screws, so I just replaced that one saddle with a standard block saddle that hotrod gave me.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:15 pm

When I had my Telecaster Deluxe RI I rusted the saddles in two weeks and replaced them with blocked OEM ones. Never looked back.

Dillon · Post by **Dillon** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 4:15 pm

That's weird. I had those saddles on my Strat for years before upgrading to some aluminum Graph Tech saddles...no problems with them rusting. I can see why they did it (to give it more of a "period correct" look), but they do kinda suck. I'm more interested in the pickups...they look like normal sized humbuckers, so I wonder how much they sound like wide range humbuckers?

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 9:33 pm

I put Vaseline on my bent Fender saddles and they're great. They also never rust. I don't know why some people spend a lot of money for cheap saddles when I can buy a real MIM Fender bridge for $12 on Ebay and pull saddles from that. And honestly, the MIM saddles are pretty good! They're definitely a bit heavier than a lot of saddles out there, and they're part of the sound. I mean, there are some cheap ass block saddles out there with no mass at all. Those buzz like crazy and the bent saddles are much better than crappy block saddles. That said, I like well-made block saddles (w/ good mass) and prefer them on more modern bridges or for hardtails, but I prefer bent saddles on the vintage style Strat trem bridges.

That said, regarding rusting, I also think some people have more acidic hands than I do.

Also, the saddle screws are not hard to find. They are M3 metric-threaded socket screws, they can be found at hobby shops (for RC cars and stuff like that) or on Ebay for pretty cheap. Most American saddle screws are 4-40 and I prefer the M3 screws because M3 hex heads are a lot heftier and so don't strip as easily. Some bass bridges are 6-32, and I've heard of some bridges using M2.5 screws, but I've never encountered them myself.

George · Post by **George** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 9:39 pm

I much prefer vintage saddles over blocks after an A/B test, and that you can adjust them a bit more finitely. Never needed special treatment here.

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 10:47 pm

I would love to try some Callaham saddles. High quality, high mass bent saddles seems like the best of all worlds.

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 11:18 pm

I used to prefer the rolled steel saddles out of some vague notion of vintage tone. but then I realized that the vintage tone sucks. they add like a nasty harmonic to the pick attack. it can sound ok if you run things relatively clean but if you use a decent amount of effects processing it just adds unnecessary noise into the system.

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 3:08 am

Mike wrote:When I had my Telecaster Deluxe RI I rusted the saddles in two weeks

MANLAND

Mike wrote:and replaced them with blocked OEM ones. Never looked back.

PUSSY

Billy3000 · Post by **Billy3000** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 5:44 am

Those saddles suck. Why would anybody like them?!? I have them on my tele deluxe RI still but I don't know why I haven't changed them yet. If I was playing guitar in a band, that would probably be the guitar I'd use, and those shitty saddles would have to go!

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 5:58 am

Mages wrote:I used to prefer the rolled steel saddles out of some vague notion of vintage tone. but then I realized that the vintage tone sucks. they add like a nasty harmonic to the pick attack. it can sound ok if you run things relatively clean but if you use a decent amount of effects processing it just adds unnecessary noise into the system.

I have a feeling you're blaming the wrong thing. Most of the nasty ping from a vintage style Strat comes from behind the nut and in the trem springs. The behind the nut is because the large length of string behind the D and G strings in the vintage-style single string tree configurations. That's the high pitched noise. The low hollow sound is the trem springs. Dampening them is easy and gets rid of that nastiness. I use a hair tie behind the nut and one around the trem springs. No nasty harmonics whatsoever.

And to be fair, these things happen on modern style twin pivot bridges with block saddles, too. It's just when it happens, you don't blame the saddles.

Really, most people who compare the tone of stamped bent saddles vs. block cast saddles tend to agree that it's stamped saddles which actually mute the top end a bit. Cast saddles make them leap out a bit more, in fact.

In any case, "true vintage tone" had a full sized steel block behind the plate. Fender has recently started putting full sized blocks in their MIM guitars, and that's a good thing. That's where the mass should be. You shouldn't need saddles to provide heft. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that Fender has always placed a great bridge into every one of their guitars because for a while, the standard Strat bridge was pretty budget quality. But today, I find that things are different, and I find the quality of the standard bridge and saddles to be quite good, certainly good enough that it's dumb to buy "upgrades" at GFS for $30 + shipping when you can get a real MIM big block steel bridge for $15.

Billy3000 wrote:Those saddles suck. Why would anybody like them?!? I have them on my tele deluxe RI still but I don't know why I haven't changed them yet. If I was playing guitar in a band, that would probably be the guitar I'd use, and those shitty saddles would have to go!

I like them because they say Fender on them and they're pretty easy to get working well. The block saddles are a superior or more sensible design, I give them that. If anything, they keep the string in place better, although some people like the bent saddles precisely because they can alter the string spacing a bit right at the saddle. Also, they can use shorter saddle screws, which is nicer for palm muting. So yeah, I give them these advantages.

But in terms of actual measurable performance, i.e. tuning stability, buzzing, string snapping, etc.? I've realized that it's not the design that makes saddles good or bad, since both are working designs. It's materials and construction. The Fender stamped saddles are pretty good, actually, much better than many cheap block saddles I've found, which use the hefty looking block design to hide the fact that they're cheap lightweight pot metal, probably zinc. It just seems a bit funny to me that some people are actually contemplating switching a steel saddle for a zinc saddle and will probably think of it as an upgrade.

Really, at long as you have a decent bridge and decent saddles, you will have no problems.

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 6:35 am

honeyiscool wrote:Really, most people who compare the tone of stamped bent saddles vs. block cast saddles tend to agree that it's stamped saddles which actually mute the top end a bit. Cast saddles make them leap out a bit more, in fact.

yes, I have compared them as well. I'm saying the "muted top end" is actually the loss of a top-end harmonic.

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 7:23 am

Well, it all matters whether you value the vintage qualities of a Strat, I suppose. I mean, a muted string response makes a bit of sense in a true vintage Strat with a weak bridge pickup with no tone knob and a large steel block that adds quite a bit of brightness. It starts to make less and less sense as you move toward more modern configurations, with lighter strings, more overwound pickups, maybe even humbuckers, zinc sustain blocks, mods that connect the bridge pickup to the tone knob, etc., where now you probably want more brightness than in a vintage Strat configuration. I do think that it's a bit silly putting stamped Fender saddles on guitars that have nothing to do with Strats.

For me, the tonal differences just aren't enough to prefer one tonally over another and I stick with whatever looks more correct for the current bridge, so I go with block saddles for two-pivot bridges and hardtails and stamped saddles for six-screw vintage tremolo style bridges.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 10:37 am

robroe wrote:
Mike wrote:When I had my Telecaster Deluxe RI I rusted the saddles in two weeks
MANLAND

robroe wrote:
Mike wrote:and replaced them with blocked OEM ones. Never looked back.
PUSSY

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 3:26 pm

honeyiscool wrote:I
Also, the saddle screws are not hard to find. They are M3 metric-threaded socket screws, they can be found at hobby shops (for RC cars and stuff like that) or on Ebay for pretty cheap. Most American saddle screws are 4-40 and I prefer the M3 screws because M3 hex heads are a lot heftier and so don't strip as easily. Some bass bridges are 6-32, and I've heard of some bridges using M2.5 screws, but I've never encountered them myself.

If they aren't hard to find, send me some. Because no shop I tried has the fucking things.