The Electra Forums

I am restoring a Electra Hollow Body its a ES 335 copy and its either a 2228 or 2229 . My question is if I lay a straight edge on the neck how high off the body app. should I be ?? I am building a new bridge and being this is almost like a acoustic shouldnt the neck be adjusted like one ?? This will help me determine how much wood to take off the bridge I am shaping it to the body shape like on a violin any one done this ??

The one I have in front of me has the stock bridge set at between 3/4" and 1". Because this adjustment has so much to do with string action height, I'd almost suggest using a generic adjustable bridge to see where you like it first, then make the new bridge to match. Granted, you could make a fixed bridge first and then adjsut the neck angle by shimming it, but I try to avoid shimming where possible, a very small change makes a big difference so it's more like you shim the neck to get it within adjsutable range and then use the bridge as the fine adjustment.

Be warned that older archtops frequently have problems with the body warping such that the neck pocket actually changes angle with respect to the rest of the body- shimming would be the least intrusive way to handle that.

This is the bridge I got from you I was just going to shave the feet to match the archtop