Telecaster saddle height

marooned

Hi, I have a Fender Brad Paisley telecaster,  I’m wondering about the saddle heights, they seem very high with quite a severe break angle over the back of the saddles.

The only other  tele I have is a USA deluxe telecaster which has six separate saddles, this is my first experience with the three brass saddle bridge.

The action on the BP seems fine, not super low, slightly higher than my own tele, but it does feel a bit “tight” when bending strings compared with my USA tele. Both are fitted with gauge 10 strings.

Do these saddles look too high? 

bluecat

They look just dandy to me.

ICBM

They look OK to me - at the upper end of the sensible range, but no more. If the action needs to come down a bit it will be fine.

The bigger problem is that they're brass...

Funkfingers

Much depends on whether the neck is shimmed in the pocket. 

Much also depends on the fingerboard radius and fret wire size. (I am accustomed to 7¼" and skinny vintage frets. Hence, I would expect both E saddles to be lower than illustrated in your photographs.)

Of necessity, the three saddles of a vintage correct bridge will be lower at one end than the other. This tends to make the strings wriggle towards the lower end. The break angle over the saddle helps a little to hold each string in its correct alignment.

BillDL

Is that the original bridge?

Looking at the photos on the Fender website (and on retailers' websites) for the Road Worn Brad Paisley Telecaster (silver glitter with Paisley pattern under clear scratchplate) the bridge has compensated brass saddles and the four securing screws are cross-head raised (slightly domed) countersunk ones.  Those would sit with the dome slightly above the surface of the bridge plate and they can be a bit of a nuisance when the saddles have to go far back to intonate the strings and the bottoms of the height adjustment grub screws for the E and A saddle and sometimes the D side of the D and G saddle won't go back further than the raised dome of the screw head.  It's hard to tell from your photos, but it looks to me as though perhaps 3 of the securing screws  at the bass side are ones without a dome where the flat top is level with the surface of the bridge plate so that the grub screws can be further back.  I might just be seeing things though.  I don't think that's the original bridge.

robgilmo

The saddles on my Baja sit a lot lower than that, just the middle strings sit a little proud of the ashtray, I dont know how they are supposed to sit on a Brad Tele but the grub screws look almost maxed out?
Also, should your strings be so close to the grub screws? The B string is sitting ontop of the screw?

stickyfiddle

Yeah, that looks like a Tele to me. I didn't want to post until I checked my own, but this is mine, aka the best Tele in the world 

This is a Rutters bridge & compensated saddles, which have relatively deep slots (maybe 1/3 of the depth of each string). But not a lot of difference between this and yours. If it feels good & sounds good then it's fine

marooned

Thanks for the comments folks

It is the original bridge however I read somewhere Fender use different saddles on these now.

Good to see someone else’s saddles sitting above the sides, I think my query was from seeing other teles where the saddles sit low below the raised sides.

As for the b string I’ve tried moving it off the screw but it seems to slide back over time….I may get some new saddles and replace these ones ( what’s wrong with brass ones? @ICBM).

Also note to self, don’t take a silver sparkle guitar out into direct sunlight, think I just about burned my retinas out haha.

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

The bigger problem is that they're brass...

marooned said:
what’s wrong with brass ones? @ICBM

1) ICBM prefers steel Telecaster bridge saddles over vintage-style brass rod ones.

2) He knows that asserting this preference at every verse end winds up some forum Telecaster purists.

Hence, the winking smiley.

ICBM

marooned said:

what’s wrong with brass ones? @ICBM

I don't like the sound of them - they have a distinctive upper-mid 'whang' sound that once heard you can't un-hear, and which I find annoying - I much prefer the slightly more scooped tone of steel saddles, which have more top-end and bottom-end but less mid.

I just have to post that every time I see them because there is a widespread but completely wrong view that they're essential to the 'true Tele sound' - they're not, some of the most iconic Tele sounds have been done with steel saddles. In fact, neither is the three-saddle arrangement, which you will often hear the same about - six saddles sound fine too. Three, six, steel, brass, whatever - they all sound like a Tele as long as the pickup is mounted through the bridge... and I'm not even certain about that.

Also, brass saddles are a bit prone to indenting under the string pressure, which can sometimes cause intonation problems or sitar-y sounds - which may be why Fender stopped using them, although I don't know.

Funkfingers said:

2) He knows that asserting this preference at every verse end winds up some forum Telecaster purists.

Hence, the winking smiley.

LordBucketHead

BillDL said:

Is that the original bridge?

Looking at the photos on the Fender website (and on retailers' websites) for the Road Worn Brad Paisley Telecaster (silver glitter with Paisley pattern under clear scratchplate) the bridge has compensated brass saddles and the four securing screws are cross-head raised (slightly domed) countersunk ones.  Those would sit with the dome slightly above the surface of the bridge plate and they can be a bit of a nuisance when the saddles have to go far back to intonate the strings and the bottoms of the height adjustment grub screws for the E and A saddle and sometimes the D side of the D and G saddle won't go back further than the raised dome of the screw head.  It's hard to tell from your photos, but it looks to me as though perhaps 3 of the securing screws  at the bass side are ones without a dome where the flat top is level with the surface of the bridge plate so that the grub screws can be further back.  I might just be seeing things though.  I don't think that's the original bridge.

I have exactly the problem you describe with intonation (E & A) & those dome head screws. Can you recommend a source of replacement screws please ? 

BillDL

LordBucketHead said:

BillDL said:

.... it looks to me as though perhaps 3 of the securing screws  at the bass side are ones without a dome where the flat top is level with the surface of the bridge plate so that the grub screws can be further back.  I might just be seeing things though.  I don't think that's the original bridge.

I have exactly the problem you describe with intonation (E & A) & those dome head screws. Can you recommend a source of replacement screws please ? 

Coincidentally I have a screw out from the bridge of one of my Tele style guitars while I rake through multiple jars of screws in search of a couple with a flat heads that conform to the angle of the countersunk holes so they are level with the plate and the heads don't go down too far.  On a four screw bridge you will be able to safely remove one of the inner ones and take it to B&Q or an old fashioned ironmonger to compare alongside bags or boxes of screws.  You obviously want screws with roughly the same thread as the ones currently securing the bridge or else new screws are just going to tap new threads in between the old ones and they may not hold as well.  If you can only find one where the flat head does go down slightly below the top of the bridge plate you would have to ensure that your height adjustment grub screw at that side of the saddle was long enough to go the extra distance without being buried almost all the way through the saddle.  A good "fasteners" website will always show diagrams of their screws and you will be able to measure your existing screw with a vernier gauge and the countersink angle with a protractor.

ICBM

There’s no need to change anything. Just adjust the saddle backwards without the string tension on so the grub screw will ride up onto the screw head, then back it off slightly to get the action where it was.

LordBucketHead

Thanks @BillDL ; - B&Q with vernier it is. There is an old fashioned DIY shop nearby (a four candles sort of place) so I'll go there first. It didn't occur to me to take a screw out in the meantime. It's surprising that the factory didn't spot that dome screws could cause a problem. Maybe calculations told them the screw position was clear of potential adjustments.

BillDL

You may well be able to just get away with doing what ICBM mentioned above, but with some pretty pronounced dome topped screws I find the grub screw slides off, particularly if the thread through the saddle isn't of a particularly high tolerance and the saddle can turn sideways a bit.