A Bridge Spring question

[peedo_deedo]

greetings to everyone on this forum.

i have a music man JP guitar. i changed the strings to a medium (11's) and I noticed that the bridge cannot handle the tension and it just continuously goes up as I tune up the strings. So i finally decided to add another spring at the back which is now a total of 4 out of the 5 total. i attached the 4th spring to the thicker strings side.

My questions are:
A) is this a good move or a bad move?
B) after i added the fourth spring, i was able to tune the guitar just fine although i noticed that the base of the bridge is not in line (or parallel) to the body of the guitar. is this something that i should be seriously worried about?

FYI: there are no dead notes on all the frets and on all the strings.

I appreciate all your expertise and comments or suggestions regarding this matter

thanks!!!

 

[Roubster]

Welcome to the forum, and you got a nice JP as well. Saphire Black I presume . The trem is not flat like it was when you got it, because the tension is greater on the strings either way with 3 springs or 4. IN order to fix that, you have to adjust the trem claw accordingly in the trem cavity. I dont think you need the 4th spring, just tighten the trem claw, meaning screw the screws IN . Just tune the guitar normally, and than make small adjustments at a time. You will have to tune to pitch every time you make the adjustment of course. Let me know how it goes.

 

[lumberjack]

Nice JP. Welcome to the forums.

 

[peedo_deedo]

Welcome to the forum, and you got a nice JP as well. Saphire Black I presume . The trem is not flat like it was when you got it, because the tension is greater on the strings either way with 3 springs or 4. IN order to fix that, you have to adjust the trem claw accordingly in the trem cavity. I dont think you need the 4th spring, just tighten the trem claw, meaning screw the screws IN . Just tune the guitar normally, and than make small adjustments at a time. You will have to tune to pitch every time you make the adjustment of course. Let me know how it goes.

Thank you so much for your advice. i will give this a try and let you know of the results. again thank you so much

 

[peedo_deedo]

Nice JP. Welcome to the forums.

thank you so much

 

[peedo_deedo]

Welcome to the forum, and you got a nice JP as well. Saphire Black I presume . The trem is not flat like it was when you got it, because the tension is greater on the strings either way with 3 springs or 4. IN order to fix that, you have to adjust the trem claw accordingly in the trem cavity. I dont think you need the 4th spring, just tighten the trem claw, meaning screw the screws IN . Just tune the guitar normally, and than make small adjustments at a time. You will have to tune to pitch every time you make the adjustment of course. Let me know how it goes.

i forgot to say that after i put the 4th spring, the tension is now greater on the bridge, which then resulted for the bridge not being flat (bridge is a little bit deeper than it should be). i tried to tighten the screw in very slowly but the tighter it gets, the lower the whole bridge goes. this caused the strings to touch the frets. so i put it back the way it was (i noted how many turns i did on the screws) and to me it works just fine. tuning is great. none of the strings are touching the frets and there are no dead notes on every fret on every string.

additional questions:

should i go back and use thinner strings (9's) and take out the fourth spring?

is it ok for me to keep the 11's and keep the fourth spring in there?

i would love to hear any feed backs or suggestions or comments from you guys.

thanks a lot

 

[Roubster]

Well with 4 springs, you have to loosen the spring claw instead of tightening it in order to level it. I personally dont think you need 4 springs in there, and plus it seems that it might make things a little uneven. Why dont you use 10s like the JP came with. I'm not sure how some people can play with 11s and be able to bend the string with ease. Try it just with 3 and tighten the trem claw to level the bridge, and even with 11s everything should be fine.

 

[peedo_deedo]

Well with 4 springs, you have to loosen the spring claw instead of tightening it in order to level it. I personally dont think you need 4 springs in there, and plus it seems that it might make things a little uneven. Why dont you use 10s like the JP came with. I'm not sure how some people can play with 11s and be able to bend the string with ease. Try it just with 3 and tighten the trem claw to level the bridge, and even with 11s everything should be fine.

Thanks a lot for your help. i will do your suggestion after our gig this saturday. Since everything is working well with my guitar anyways. i'll keep it that way at least until the gig is over.

i appreciate your time Roubster!! thank you so much.