Left handed bridge on a right handed Tele?

Rex_Rocker

Well-known member
Wondering if it would be a good idea.

Never liked the fact that the Tele bridge pickup is slanted away from the saddles in the lower strings. Kinda makes the bass strings bassier and the treble strings treblier. I'd rather have the lower strings be tighter and the higher strings be smoother.

So I wonder if I could achive this by adding a left-handed bridge to my Squier Esquire? What do you guys think?
 
I approve.

So does John Page.
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i build an esquire like this a long time ago. lefty calaham tele bridge with righty saddles (three saddle bridge similar to the pic above). if you had a six saddle bridge, then youll be fine. you will need to rout under the bride to get the pup to fit, even if its routed for a bucker. im a big fan of the reverse slant single coil in the bridge. this is the only pic i could find quickly which doesnt really show it well
 

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Ohhhh, the routing under the pickup! Didn't count on that. So it's not going to be as easy as a bridge swap and that's it...
 
That doesn't mean it's gonna be hard though. Tele bridges are really good at concealing ugly routing. If you're not 100% perfect on your routing abilities, this is a great place to get started. If you've never done any routing, you should still probably find some scrap wood to practice on.
 
Check the route. Some have room, some don't.

It'll probably sound great if you can do it.

One trick I read about tele bridge tone that I employ whenever I'm not digging my tele's bridge tone... it's counterintuitive but you actually crank the amp's treble all the way up and then adjust the guitar's tone knob to taste. This approach can actually fatten up the tele bridge tone.
 
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If you have access to a drill press, a Forstner bit can hog out most of the wood and make it much easier if you do go this route.
 
ive done that many times when i didnt have a router, works well. then i use a chisel to square things if needed.

the treble full up on an amp can work well depending on the amp and what you are trying to get out of it. i use my tone control all the time on all my guitars, i almost never have the treble full up.
 
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