3-Point Abuse

[Granny Gremlin]

Oh the humanity; the comedy of errors; an object lesson in measure-twice-cut-once.

On first glance (from the front) I thought it was just a more arched knock-off 3 pointer... but when you look from the rear the sad truth becomes clear.  Looks like somebody measured wrong and drilled the rear post holes too close together... so instead of fixing that they bent the poor 3 point until it fit (I doubt that high arch matches the fretboard radius, which would be the only other reason to do this, but I did not check at the time - this was in one of my fave local junky used gear stores).... which made the action too high so they had to route out the body underneath it (hard to see in the pics, sorry). Forget what the bass was but it was a popular Japanese import brand (not Aria, the other big one.... why does my brain suck today).  Nevermind the action must be crazy on the middle 2 strings and either the bridge is too far back or the person also has no idea how to intonate properly.  He coulda have at least swapped the E+G with the A+D saddles to compensate for the crazy arch.  It's just one thing after another here.





Naysayers be damned, it's a fine bridge and it deserves better then this.

[bassilisk]

Holy Moly!!!! Bass Guess = Vantage? Westone?

I wouldn't think you could do that to a 3 point without actually breaking it. That was a very determined effort indeed (vs plugging the holes and re-drilling).

That looks like the work of a blacksmith....

[66Atlas]

My opinion of 3 points is well documented, BEST bridge ever built!

But actually the cheap 3-points knock-offs Vantage installed were known to do that.  Similar to Rickenbacker tail-lift they just slowly bend up from string tension over time.

[Granny Gremlin]

Yeah, I think Vantage is the one.

If they did that naturally over time, how did it not warp the rear post hooks (for lack of a better term)?  How does it still fit on there?  Pretty drastic bend and since there's that obvious kink from the fulcrum visible on the back (directly under the D string) it really doesn't feel like tension over time, but maybe (never heard of that).

[66Atlas]

It's a good question, but I've never actually seen one it person but have seen it a few times come up on other forums. I recall one example where the back spine of the bridge actually cracked ope on the A and D strings as it pulled up.  It looks like in your picture there are actually washers placed under the ball ends that may cover this up.  I suppose it could just come down to thickness of the metal accross the bottom and back spine.  If you google 3 point Vantage bass you'll actually see some more expamples.

[gearHed289]

If you google 3 point Vantage bass you'll actually see some more expamples.

Wow, no kidding!

[uwe]

[Alanko]

Yeah, I've seen some ultra-radius'd 3 pointers on "lawsuit"-era Japanese stuff before. I guess they were made of soft metal, which also explains why I've seen them with chunks missing.

I wonder if they ordered them to the wrong specs then bent each and every one in the factory?

[Blackbird]

Maybe it's the Opti-grab 1.0....