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  #1  
Old 07-23-2022, 12:47 PM
DethWshBkr DethWshBkr is offline
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Default Emerald Pinless Bridge

I know I had seen a few posts about this. I cant' say I mind it, but I have definitely found a flaw in it.
Thankfully my Virtuo has a large access door behind the bridge, so its easy to change the strings and correct this.
When changing the strings last evening to a variant of high strung/Nashville, lightly tensioning the D string, suddenly it made a not so nice sound and lost some tension. I took a look, and found the ball end had rotated 90*. When that happened, the narrower end can very slightly start to get pulled into the cutout. This then got it stuck, and I had to get a small pair of needle-nose pliers to pull the string back out.
If I had not caught this, and tensioned up the string fully - I am convinced it would have pulled through the bridge and severely damaged it. More than likely some sort of washer or carbon repair would be required to properly connect a string in the future. With the Virtuo, adding some sort of a blocker or washer could be done. On a regular acoustic...not so much.

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Old 07-23-2022, 01:13 PM
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David Eastwood David Eastwood is offline
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That doesn't look good - I'm not sure how you'd have sorted that without the access panel.

Even though I've found a way of working with it, I remain unconvinced by the pinless bridge.
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Old 07-23-2022, 01:25 PM
jdinco jdinco is offline
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I'm not familiar with that pinless setup, so correct me if I'm wrong...I can't imagine a setup where the orintation of the ball end should make a difference? How would you be able to control that on an X-20 (or other acoustics)? It looks like a manufacturing flaw to me or the slot had been damaged previously??? Seems that the bottom of the bridge should be reinforced. Hope you can get it sorted out.
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Old 07-23-2022, 01:26 PM
new2guitar_eh new2guitar_eh is offline
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Have you raised this with Alastair? I am sure he would be interested in seeing your picture
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Old 07-23-2022, 03:54 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David Eastwood View Post
Even though I've found a way of working with it, I remain unconvinced by the pinless bridge.
Me too. It’s a solution to no problem I’ve ever had. And I’ve tried Martin titanium strings on it and they have a kind of smooth, bullet shaped end on each string. Getting that thing to bite was a major PIA. I finally got all six strings seated, but several came out at least once in the process. I haven’t had any trouble with more typical strings, but if I’d had a choice, I’d have opted for a pinned bridge…

-Ray
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