Decreasing Break Angle on a Bigsby

olafgarten

Hi, 

I recently got a Yamaha Revstar RS720B for my birthday and there is an issue with the Bigsby.

The break angle is so severe that the strings are touching the back of the bridge. Should I just run the strings over the top of the tension bar or get a Bigsby Tuning Stabiliser? 

jimmyguitar

Are there any noticeable side affects to the strings touching the bridge? If there are no weird sounds and no premature string breakage it’s probably not an issue.   

impmann

Sounds like you need a Bricks Bigs Fix  - they are brilliant and solve these problems.

https://bricksbiggsfix.com/product/btsv3/

stickyfiddle

jimmyguitar said:

Are there any noticeable side affects to the strings touching the bridge? If there are no weird sounds and no premature string breakage it’s probably not an issue.   

It's likely to hurt tuning stability, especially in conjunction with the bigsby itself.

Agree on the Biggsfix suggestion - that's designed to fix exactly this issue. 

olafgarten

Yeah, I've played well setup Bigsby guitars and they stay more or less in tune, this one doesn't. 

digitalkettle

impmann said:

Sounds like you need a Bricks Bigs Fix  - they are brilliant and solve these problems.

https://bricksbiggsfix.com/product/btsv3/

Just fitted one of these...tuning woes over...Bigsby feels more lively than a Gotoh 2-post now!

With the extreme break angle, the bridge seemed to have two or three ‘zero’ positions depending whether you’d dipped or pulled the bar.

axisus

impmann said:

Sounds like you need a Bricks Bigs Fix  - they are brilliant and solve these problems.

https://bricksbiggsfix.com/product/btsv3/

To me those look sooooo ugly. I could never fit one. I spent a lot of time getting my No 1 guitar's Bigsby working well, and I'm very happy with it without extra bits. I'd be interested to see what the OP's problem looks like??

Alnico

@TheMarlin posted something about this maybe last year. It's an adapter bar that sits higher...or something like that.

I'll let him explain properly when he sees this.

EDIT: I should have clicked the link before posting.

THAT'S the adapter bar I remember seeing, the Bricksbiggsfix one.

I agree with @impmann it's barely visible.

impmann

axisus said:

impmann said:

Sounds like you need a Bricks Bigs Fix  - they are brilliant and solve these problems.

https://bricksbiggsfix.com/product/btsv3/

To me those look sooooo ugly. I could never fit one. I spent a lot of time getting my No 1 guitar's Bigsby working well, and I'm very happy with it without extra bits. I'd be interested to see what the OP's problem looks like??

Interesting - what is ugly? Once its fitted its pretty much invisible.

TBH, though, if the break angles are too acute there isn't any other way in my experience (especially on those generally suspect licenced ones).

olafgarten

In that case does anyone in the UK have one they are considering selling? It will save on the $15 shipping and customs fees. 

Henrytwang

Taking the strings over the top of the bar may be an option providing there is enough of a break angle to keep the strings in the bridge slots and they don’t touch the bar. I have a Harley Benton Big Tone and they are notorious for the steep string angle behind the bridge, I just ran the strings over the top of the bar and it works fine. On theHarley some people have put a couple of spacers under the front screws the attach the trem to the body to relieve the steep break angle.