Steinberger Question and answer time!

I have a surface mount hardtail steinberger bridge. The one
pictured on the yahoo group site on a pink carpet. Shag carpet that
is. ;-)
> I was hoping to have as much wood as possible behind the bridge, so
I though if I could lift those tuners off the body a bit, by tilting
towards the neck, then I wouldnt have to cut, dig, carve, maim,
mutilate my custom made guitar body. Even better, I could take that
into consideration in designing the body in the first place. The
saddles have a lot of headroom in them, up and downwise, as well as
forward and backward.
> What I am unsure of, is if it would have any negative effects on:
>
> A) string tension, although I m pretty sure that can be fixed with
saddle height.
> B) sound, because the bridge would be screwed on an angled carved
recess for its base plate, so technically it wouldnt be level with
the fretboard and the top of the body.
> C) structural integrity, since string pull, assuming string tension
is the same, would not pull it off the wood of the guitar body. I
doubt that would be the case, but I am asking before moving forward
with my guitar design.
>
> Of course, take 10 seconds to think about it, if that is
applicable, even to R-trems, S-trems, Bondy bridge, trac tuner, you
could fit one of those on a warmoth strat body, without having to
carve any wood out of it, short of the actual cavity of course. All
that with a slight tilt forward to lift the knobs off the wood.

Answer:


Don't forget that the saddles are held into the bridge by the screw
on the side, so raising the saddles sufficiently high and with such a
tilt wouldn't just reduce tension, but would also lose some grip to
keep the saddles solid for intonation.

A better solution was done by, sorry to say, Ed Roman. Look at the
following link about 3/4 of the way down or text search for (XB 1)
which is a model of LSR that is shaped like an Explorer that Buck
Dharma is picured as playing. What Roman did was to cut a channel
probably only 1" deep in an otherwise probably standard 1.75" body
behind the trem all the way to the tail, then mounted the
deactivated Hohner ambitrem without the trem base in what would be a
standard height. Look closely at the pic and you will see this. The
player would then use this channel as room to fit his fingers to
reach the tuners without requiring a complete cut through the body.

http://www.edroman. com/guitars/ lsr.htm

There is a Steinbergerworld member named Melne who has worked with
Buck Dharma directly who might be able to ask him better questions to
confirm these observations or offer better description.

I think that using this channeled approach will give the asthetics
and structure you are looking for while retaining the integrity of
the saddle height.