Guitar eating Bridge

[Guitarsmasher911]

My guitars bridge is eating my strings alive!! From right when i put the new strings on it kills them.cuts'em in half. I have an epiphone les paul and i know that is why...cause the bridges just kinda suck. What can i do to solve this problem? Sharpen it down? Get a new bridge?

[Jeff_H]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

The easiest thing to do is to buy some graphtec graphite replacement saddles...that should solve your problem.

The stock saddles can be "dulled" by filing and sanding the slots. I've never tried this, so I'll let someone else with knowledge chime in on that one. Hang in there....there is a realitivly simple fix.

[Nightburst]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

What works for some people i know and me is using a charcoal pencil on your bridge. Can't guarantee it will work with your bridge and I don't know the physics behind it but so far I've seen it work miracles on a Gibson bridge, fender bridge and Ibanez bridge.

[Zerberus]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

I´m with J, either smooth the burrs on the original saddles or install Graph-tech String Saver saddles (one of the few products in the music industry that does it´s name justice IMO )

[Guitarsmasher911]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

So where can i get some Graph Tech string savor saddles?

[Guitarsmasher911]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

Will the Gibson ABR-1 Tun-O-Matic string saver saddles work for my epiphones bridge? It is the bridge it came with the guitar.

[Jeff_H]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Nuts,_saddles/Electric_guitar_saddles/Graph_Tech_Tune-O-Matic_Style_Saddles.html

This should do you just fine.

[korinastratkyle]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

Also, is the tail piece adjusted at too low of an angle, are the strings hitting the back of the bridge? I like graphtech saddles myself, BTW.

[Wattage]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

First try raising the tailpiece a little bit, made a huge difference for me. I used to go through A and D strings like mad until I did that.

Are they the low end strings you are snapping? If so one trick I use to clean the saddle slots up is to take a piece of cut string with a little graphite on it and use it like a file. I'll run it back and forth in the groove to make sure it is smooth, using the graphite polishes it a bit and make sure you are not really cutting the groove deeper.

Those 2 things should help a lot. The next thing I did was go to a little lighter pick, I rarely break strings now. If you continue to break strings you might consider trying a different brand?

[Hellion]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

I've run into the problem myself on occasion, and you can sometimes fix it by taking a fine triangle file and deburring the saddle. It's not a big deal to do it yourself, but you want to make sure you don't file off a lot of saddle material. If it bothers you too much to do it yourself, there's probably a guitar shop somewhere near you that can do it for you.

[Hellion]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

By the way, Graph-Tech saddles are a HUGE improvement on the tone of just about any instrument, and they don't eat strings like those metal tuneamatic bridges...

[Guitarsmasher911]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

Yeah my lower strings are breaking i tune down to C and D....and my lower 3 strings are the ones that break all the time. I will prolly settle on getting some string saver saddles.

[Guitarsmasher911]

Re: Guitar eating Bridge

I just raised my tailpiece.....it looks as if that will help alot. Looks as if it lowers some of that tension on the strings.