Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

My first bridge on this thing was very cheesy and fender-like so I decided to take the original "A" style hipshot saddles and add a fifth one ($9). Factory Hipshot bridges have dividers between the saddles making the string spread too wide so I had to retain the "B" style bridge base. This required five more holes to be drilled in the bridge but the results were great. These are high quality saddles with lots of adjustability and increased my string spread from 2 1/4" to just over 2 3/8" which is perfect for a 4004 neck.

OLD BRIDGE


NEW BRIDGE

Nice! Now that you turned it into a 5 string bss, if you ever get up to Cleveland, bring it up as I'd like to see how it feels. The bass, that is!

that is a much better bridge ... but do you get any volume dropoff in the B or G string? that looks like 2 7/16" ... When I do a 4004 4-2-5 I prefer 2 3/8" ...

I have tried several bridges for the 4004 4-2-5 conversions ...

here is an allparts 2 1/4" bridge ... (they are made any more)


here is a kahler ... these are excellent ...


this type bridge is perfect ... but hard to find ...

I might have my machinist friend make me some bridges with the same dimensions as this one ...

here's the conversion I did for Barry ...



notice the strings over the pickup ... this is about as far as I can go with Ric pickups ...

I, too, wondered about the B and G volume/tone.

this confirms it, I'm buying a ric and having someone do the conversion for me. Ive been gassing for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.

Jeff, I can't speak for the hb equiped 4004's, but if you have double toasters there is no volume drop on the outer strings, I was surprised at how good the B string sounds, very strong. This bridge just lacks being 2 7/16" so I rounded down, it's closer to 2 13/32" but that's an awkward number. If your machinist friend can make a base, nobody can beat the hipshot saddles and they sold me one for $9, I don't know if they would be into selling a quantity though.
The base I'm using is the allparts one that you are showing above. I had to drill five extra holes to make this one work, so a custom base with the hipshot saddles would be a good match. It could stand to be a little wider than the allparts one as this one just barely covers the allen screws.

I did the conversion for Barry and the toasters seemed to cover the wider spacing ... so maybe the alnico magnets throw a wider magnetic field than the dual rail pickups ... at least the imperical data seems to suggest that ... basically a 4-2-5 on a Rickenbacker means pushing the strings to the outer limits of the effective magnetic field of the pickups ... pretty much all rickenbacker pickups are designed for a 2 1/16" string spacing ... 2 1/4" string spacing works very well but as we get above that we start to get close to the edge ... I really wish there was a Rickenbacker pickup that was designed for a 2 1/2" or 2 3/4" string spacing ... that would make this whole process a lot easier ...