GW Basses & Luthiery

  New Bridge for a vintage Eko "Beatle Bass"
A local bassist brought this bass to me to get it back up and running. He had inherited it from his Dad who used to play it back when he was in bands in his late teens and early twenties and then it went in the case and under the bed for all these years. It was in very good shape, however, the bridge had gone missing years ago. Since his Dad had given it to him he wanted to bring it back and start gigging with it. I happened to have a "tune-o-matic style" bridge left over from a late 60's Eko "EB0" knock off bass I had put together with all new hardware and electronics. We figured finding an original bridge for this particular bass wouldn't be very easy, and he didn't want to spend a lot of money on it, so I set about making a new mounting base for the bridge I had to bring this beauty back to playing condition.

Making a new bridge bass from scratch

I decided to build a new bridge bass out of some ebony cut-offs from another project and some maple veneer to try and match the colors in the binding on this bass.



New base glued up from two pieces of ebony with a thin accent layer of maple in between

Bass is ready.....


Measuring the curve of the top where the bridge will go

Transferring the body curve to the new bridge bass


Checking the holes for bridge mounting studs for proper spacing

Checking to ensure that the curve in the base matches the curve of the arched top


Bridge position all measured and marked out on the bass

Cutting the original mounting studs shorted to fit in the new base


Holes for ounting studs countersunk and studs have been pressed into the new base

 


New base all polished up and finished

The bridge mounted on the new base, ready to go on the bass for a setup and playing!



Here she is with the new bridge, new strings, and a full setup done, ready to plug in and rumble some low end!






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