Some holes to fill in Tele bridge

[pete1951]

Someone has given me a Tele to bring back to life



To improve intonation someone put Strat style bridge pieces on it ( drilling 6 extra holes in the back of the bridge plate) they then must have found they could not get them back far enough to get it in tune, so what to do?
Let’s chop 8mm out of the pickup route , move the bridge plate back 8mm and drill 6 new holes for the strings and we better have a couple of extra bridge mounting screws just to be on the safe side.
Anyway I have soldered some brass screw heads in the big holes, and maybe I will fill the extra string holes too.


Yes I know you can buy a ‘new’ vintage plate but the owner wants it to be as original as possible!

Pete

[mitchfit]

Pete,

idle curiosity. are plating shops still around in the UK?

few remain, and far between in the US.

mitchfit

[pete1951]

I live 500yards from a small plating works and there are at least 2 more in town ( I live in Cambridge uk which is not very big). It maybe that because this is a university town with lots of startups, small plating business can survive, I think many do acid etching of PCBs as well as plating. Had a new reso body plated some years ago but nothing since then.
I will not be getting the Fender bridge re-plated, if you think the bridge looks bad you should see the body!
Pete

[Pickers Ditch]

There are some around - one in Kent which did a great job for me a few years ago on a bridge cover.

They can be found via vintage car restorers but I guess elf and safety / effluent control rules are that tight when it comes to plating solutions (CrVI?) and the cost of energy these days means it doesn't seem to be a cheap solution anymore.

[mitchfit]

Pete,

you are correct, i assumed the early "patent pending" bridge meant a restoration project. personally, wouldn't consider that false advertising as close inspection would still reveal the repair.

my posting should have been more specific. industrial plating is still out there in large scale. it's the small scale businesses you and PD mentioned that are gone here in the US.

the small job shops went the way of the dinosaur when they couldn't afford new nearly hermetically sealed environmental requirements.

this caused a great weeping and gnashing of the teeth among the Harley Knucklehead crowds.

for sure we need to quit poisoning the planet. but the above seems almost contrived when considering the daily mail said only 16 modern super ships burning bunker fuel can create more pollution than ALL of the automobiles on earth.

can't make this stuff up,
mitchfit