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Red Special Super arrival (Finally)

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· Member since
The Wilkinson roller bridge is a great affordable and easier to set up unit than the original BM design. The other alternative would be a Schaller Roller bridge as used by Guild in early 90's. Both these units are massed produced affordable and work.

The original BM design works very well but is time consuming to fit and has no easy method of setting up. The BM units consists of six individual saddles screwed directly to the body, the only hight adjustment is by removal of the saddle and adding a shim under it and then reassembling.

Likewise the rollers use an "axle" pin which sits in grooves in the top of the saddle. The only method of intonation (back and forth) adjustment is by removing the string and lifting the roller out of it's slot and moving it back or forward. Also breaking strings while playing risks a roller popping out and being lost.

Brian's guitar design was great and it did many things guitars at the time couldn't do, but the one place it failed is in ease of adjustment and setup.

One of the reasons, apart from the body construction, that the Super is affordable is because the Wilkinson bridge only needs two holes drilled for the posts it sits on and then can be easily adjusted compared to the six holes and times consuming figment of an original style BM bridge.

Of course if your that worried about the look, you could by a Super and retro fit a BM bridge or approach someone like Dansen guitars who build very nice replica guitars with the BM bridge.
· Member since
The Super bridge actually works very well, you can set the intonation very accurately, but if you are after the 'correct' look retro fitting isnt that hard, you can buy pickguards and bridges fairly easily.

As with all things when you are talking mass production even if its 100 guitars or less you have to look at cost, building the accurate bridge would cost significantly more adding to the overall price of the guitar
possibly pushing it over the point people would buy it. Personally I suspect the type of people that have bought this guitar would have paid slightly more for a truly authentic version but BMG didnt think so.
"It is better to sit in silence and have people think you're a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt"