Yes, a drop of Loctite will prevent the bridge post from lowering the bridge on their own account. It's a good temporary solution while you wait for the Staytrem bridge. I use those because of their string spacing and build quality. Very good value for money.(Yes it is a rocking bridge).

Last edited: Jun 30, 2024 03:03:35

I ended up getting the Mustang bridge with proper spacing from eBay. This ought to hold me over until I decide between Mastery or Staytrem.

I have some 11's on it, I like thick strings anyway! I'm going to put a .25 shim in it later today.

Where do I put the Loctite on the bridge? My best guess screw the bridge posts all the way out, apply a dab of Loctite to exposed threads and screw it back up unto the bridge?

Last edited: Jun 30, 2024 10:36:43

I’d also recommend the Staytrem. We practically use them on all our custom offset builds at my place of business. Super simple and reliable.

The staytrem bridge is a bit more solidly built and I believe you can order it with a different radius if you needed it. I haven’t looked at a standard mustang bridge in a while to compare them but I would guess the string slots on the staytrem might be a little deeper to reduce the strings popping out with heavier picking or strumming. The regular mustang bridge is really a good enough improvement over the classic jazz/jag bridge that you might be plenty happy with it. The staytrem website might break down the benefits. Either way, if you don’t dig the classic jazz/jag bridge, both the mustang and staytrem will be an improvement.

Awesome, thanks for the info.

I'm officially on the waiting list for a Staytrem. They don't charge until it ships anyways so i figured why not?

But about the bridge posts that keep lowering from playing,.. can I use Loctite (the blue temporary kind) for that?

chiba wrote:

Staytrem products are worth the wait. Mastery products are worth the cost.

Not to poke at the seemingly eternal debate, but I'm always curious as to why people prefer one over the other. I got a Staytrem for my Squier CV Bass VI because the stock bridge was impossible to intonate properly. Wait time aside, I'm impressed with the build quality of the Staytrem. I've only been interested in offset guitars for a few years now, but I've drunk the kool-aid when it comes to the rocking bridge design, however I can't help but notice A LOT of jazzmaster players tend to prefer the mastery and I'm not 100% sure why. I thought the rocking bridge was supposed to be more of a feature than a flaw and the fact that the Mastery doesn't allow independent intonation adjustment per-saddle makes me raise my eyebrows.

TLDR: If anyone in the thread has a preference for either staytrem or mastery, I'd love to hear why.

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AgentClaret wrote:

Also, I think I might need to increase the shim in the neck. I have a .25 in there now and just eyeballing it makes it look like it still almost has a forward tilt instead of back tilt. The action is pretty high and I'm still getting a little bit of choking in the upper frets on the high E string.

I'm not an expert, but as far as I know, the shim shouldn't affect choking in the upper register. It should allow you to raise the bridge to increase downward pressure on the bridge while keeping the action low. I'd check the frets with a fret rocker to make sure they're even, and maybe check how much relief you have on the truss rod (although in my limited experience, the truss rod issues would tend to result in buzzing more on the lower frets than the upper ones).

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Last edited: Jul 02, 2024 22:38:24

AgentClaret wrote:

I may not have the radius set quite right. I just got a set of gauges for that but don't know how to properly use them so my E strings might be a little low, thus the choking.

I dunno, I'm used to Strats, this is a whole new beast to me...

It's fiddly work, but I've learned to enjoy the tinkering. You can really customize an awful lot with offset guitars. You want to pop the appropriately sized radius gauge so that the top edge of the curve is UNDER the strings right in front of the bridge. The handle will be between the D and G string. The idea is to set the curvature of the underside of the strings so that they match the neck/frets exactly. Set the high E and low E first. If the middle strings are getting in the way, just set them high to get them away. Then work your way from outside in setting the height of each string so that it just barely touches the top of the radius gauge. Make sure you're not really yanking on it to lift the strings. Don't worry about setting the action. This is just to make sure the radius is correct.

Once that's set, you can raise or lower the bridge to taste to actually set the action.

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After reading on some other forums I've come to discover that the thimbles in the Vintera series are extra small and leave the bridge very little room to rock. I'd kind of wondered about that but this is my first offset so I didn't know what a normal amount of rocking is.

That's fine, I've decided I'm not rocking mine. I've got the Mustang bridge in 52mm on it now and I lowered the break angle and lubed the saddles today. It's staying in tune so much better!

Last edited: Jul 05, 2024 23:36:44