LeftyBassist.com

I have a '78 Fender Jazz Bass and I have had constant problems with the height adjustment screws working themselves down as I play. It can take as little as one song to completely bottom the saddle out, ONLY ON THE E STRING.
I have replaced the saddle 4 times now with brand new saddles.
The current bridge is a brand new Fender 70s Reissue. The replacement saddles have all been brand new Fender 70s RI saddles.
The break angle of the string over the saddle seems just fine.
And I'm not interested in using nail polish or loctite to fix this. A new bridge shouldn't have this problem.
There is apparently another issue going on here. Has anyone had something like this happen?
Thanks!

I've had conversations about this with some people and the general consensus is that it's all about the bottom line.

When tolerances are set too high and the fit is too perfect it slows down the assembly process... They also have to sometimes re-tap the threads after the finishing process. Lower tolerances allow for better fits and faster assembly, but are prone to settling when the instrument vibrates.

I hate to say it, but I think you're destined to have to use nail polish. If you use a toothpick, dip it in and just drag it across the threads, it'll be enough to hold it in place, but not so much that it gums it up and makes it hard to adjust.

Yeah, it looks like it's either that or grab a Babicz and slap it on there.

Is that your only bass with that style bridge? If not then I assume the other bass doesn't do this?

And the E only thing, do you think that's due to it being the only string with enough umph to move the height screws?

Also, to be clear about the times you've replaced the saddles, did that include new screws or did you re-use the old ones in the new saddle?

Either way did you try swapping say the screws out of the G into the E saddle to see if the bottoming problem "followed" the screws to the G string?

Yes, I'm OCD on chasing down BS like this.

I'll look into this further.

I did replace the screws

I would just replace the the saddles by threaded Fender saddles

Matt,

not meant to hijack your thread but thought I would shoehorn in this vid from Fender on a newish (to me at least) bridge.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... mJOvIqcrjw

I just bought a Babicz. Oh, and I hate TalkBass.

Not as much as I do. There's just SO much b.s. to cut through! I don't even like shopping the classifieds there, it gets so annoying!!

It's like a huge sorority house where everyone's periods are synced up. Everyone is looking for a fight. Dicks.

You shall soon be excommuniated from TB

Teflon tape can be your friend here. Which variety to choose will depend on how much slop you need to overcome. I've used the regular white type on many occasions, but the yellow type (for natural gas pipe threads) might work for cases where the Grand Canyon seems like a close squeeze


and not to hijack, but this same loose tolerance approach is common to trussrods as well. I have done repairs on several Fender basses where it appeared the TR was stripped, but having a new nut machined with tighter thread tolerances got the TR back into working order without any further issues

R

Thanks guys. I understand that short of replacing the bridge with a Babicz (which I'm doing now), thread tape or loctite or nail Polish is the only option for this particular bass.

I posed this question (copied and pasted) on TalkBass as well, hoping that between here and there I might get insight into why my bass is doing this after multiple saddle replacements.
It seems it's just how this particular hunk of ash vibrates that causes the issue, so the locking saddles on the Babicz will cure the problem.

And thanks for being constructive in your answers fellas. Pretty stark contrast to TalkBass, which is crammed with assholes. They acted like I am a fucking moron for presenting this question.

Wow man I just read your thread over at TB. WTF is wrong with people? If they can't come to grips with a silly little thing like you wanting to get to the root cause of the problem instead of using a workaround, I can't imagine how they handle real life..

I know man. Thanks, I was beginning to think I might be losing my mind after the douchebag pile up session over there, but quickly realized I was just talking to a collection of insufferable assholes. I felt like my original post was pretty fucking black & white. Haha.

Matt,
at least you got some clear thinking folks offering some good real-world solutions. But it looks to me like the ratio of doughwad-to-reasonable responses was 10:1

Very true, my friend.

Bleccch.

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f18/strin ... t-1064964/

12:1

Yeah, I just stumbled on that thread myself.

You just gotta ignore the trolls, man. Anything else will only fan the flames.