Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Contemplating getting a Mastery bridge for my left-handed 360V64. Can I just flip the saddles on a regular M5 bridge? Am I missing something? Thanks in advance for any advice!

I enjoy the mastery bridge very much on my 360.

For a lefty, it won't be necessary to flip the saddles. Just orient it with the adjustment hexes away from the neck, and intonate each saddle set as needed.

Yeah, there's nothing about a Mastery bridge that is specifically left or right handed. You can make it work. All the saddle slots are the same, there's only two saddles with a movable axis to each one.

Oh, and they are amazing on Rickenbackers. Light years better than the hunk of junk that come stock.

larry mal wrote: the hunk of junk that come stock.

Easy newb... no need to throw insults around. It's perfectly fine to praise Mastery - I love their bridge on my Jazzmaster. But to call the stock Rick bridge junk? You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but this forum might not be the best place to show up and call the main focus (Ricks) junk. All I'm saying is there is a much nicer way to say what you think.

larry mal wrote:Light years better than the hunk of junk that come stock.

Since that is how you feel about a perfectly fine piece of hardware, you should have no problem shipping that Rick bridge to me for free, as, surely you wouldn't expect someone to pay for such a "HOJ", as you put it. PM me and I give you the shipping address.

With the stock bridge, the intonation for each string can be adjusted individually, and on the same radius as the fretboard. The Mastery cannot do either with two saddles. The locking baseplate is an innovation, but the builder won't sell those separately.

Yeah, this might not be the forum for me.

aceonbass wrote:With the stock bridge, the intonation for each string can be adjusted individually, and on the same radius as the fretboard. The Mastery cannot do either with two saddles. The locking baseplate is an innovation, but the builder won't sell those separately.

Never had a problem getting the intonation right on each string with a Mastery bridge - that's on a '67 Rickenbacker 335 and '66 365, a Fender Jazzmaster and a Bigsby fitted Fender Telecaster Custom '62 reissue.

If you use an accent vibrato and your string attack is on the heavy side, then the Mastery bridge is a much better option than the stock bridge. No more drops of Loctite or superglue or whatever else is needed to keep the height adjustment poles from shifting as you use the vibrato arm. For me they are an improvement, but if you don't do the above or have these problems then swapping out the bridges probably isn't really needed.

Thanks, all, for the input. I'm pretty sure I get how the intonation works with these. I've dialed in a really nice sound between this guitar, a few pedals, and amp (doing the Setting Sons era Paul Weller thing when pushing it), but single notes up the neck are plinkier than I would like. I'm going to give it a try.