Swopping saddles only on tuneomatic bridge?

scarry67

I ended up replacing whole bridge unit in my Orville Les Paul as saddles were worn & uneven which was a shame as I liked the nicely aged bridge. The string retainer seems unnecessary as I struggled to remove the saddles once I had removed that wire. Should I be able to simply take the 6 saddles out of the replacement bridge and put them in the original bridge part? (Hope that makes sense…)

BillDL

Some Tun-o-Matic bridges come with tiny circlips holding the screws to stop them from sliding out backwards as you screw them.  If there is no string retainer wire on the replacement bridge it could be that it uses the circlip retention method. They are very hard to see, and very fiddly to remove and replace.  Can you take some very close-up photos of the existing bridge and the replacement one?

scarry67

Both have the wire retainer. I managed to swop 2 of the saddles round a while ago on the Orville bridge but they were still very uneven in the height of the grooves. But it wasn’t easy. I’d read that the retainer stops saddles falling out if strings break live. Wouldn’t be a problem from what I’ve seen (!)

Seziertisch

The bridge on my Orville by Gibson looks like a Tuneomatic but is metric and not imperial. 

The saddles aren’t interchangeable with those of a regular Tuneomatic.

scarry67

I did have a struggle replacing snapped pickup surround and, particularly annoying, pickup screws. Anyway, the cheap replacement tuneomatic works well and will age with time. Probably best left alone.

Andyjr1515

scarry67 said:

I ended up replacing whole bridge unit in my Orville Les Paul as saddles were worn & uneven which was a shame as I liked the nicely aged bridge. The string retainer seems unnecessary as I struggled to remove the saddles once I had removed that wire. Should I be able to simply take the 6 saddles out of the replacement bridge and put them in the original bridge part? (Hope that makes sense…)

If it's like for like, then yes - but if the two are different make or models then no, it will probably be quite difficult.  There is no such thing as 'standard' sizing of the components...