Wilkinson (by Sung-il) ashtray bridge arrived today.
Inspected it prior to installation. It's a pretty decent hardware, feels nice. A bit lighter than the stock "modern" bridge. Had to fine sand a few holes where the strings would pass, though. Most have pretty rough edges. Nothing that a 600-800-1000 grit sandpaper couldn't fix. I did it to be sure the strings won't get caught and break.
Here's the old stock bridge. Solid bridge. Seems to have SS saddles. I really had no problems with it, but I wanted brass saddles for this tele rather than steel. Couldn't find 6-pc brass saddles for the modern bridge so I just went with the ashtray bridge with 3 brass saddles.
On a side note, the bridge didn't come with mounting screws so I had to use the 4 mounting screws form the old bridge. Not much of a deal breaker, but I wish Wilkinson supplied the bridge with their own screws.
Also, I had to notch the saddles since the strings were slipping, causing uneven string distances. It seems that the brass saddles were also short and did not touch each other, this caused some "play" on the saddles when the strings are not yet in tension. When tuned and in tension, the saddles don't move from their place, but I wish Wilkinson designed the bridge either with grooves at the bottom for the saddle height screws to follow, or just made 3 saddles that are in contact with each other so there won't be any play. Again, string spacing might be affected. Or maybe I'll just get a different saddle set next time.
**I initially went for the top load style, but I didn't like how it felt so I went with string-thru style afterwards**
Now that I have an ashtray bridge, I can use this!! Yehey!
