Norlin era education desired

[RJLII]

A good friend is a Norlin era LPC fan and has a couple great specimens. He recently purchased an ‘82 with a bridge unlike anything I’ve seen before. See photo below. Original? Replacement?

Oh Les Paul Illuminati, please school this poor boy……

 

[darkwave]

A good friend is a Norlin era LPC fan and has a couple great specimens. He recently purchased an ‘82 with a bridge unlike anything I’ve seen before. See photo below. Original? Replacement?

Oh Les Paul Illuminati, please school this poor boy……

I've seen that on Gibsons in the 82-83 range, Victory guitars in particular? I don't think it is the Top-Adjust, but I believe this one had three holes underneath on each side so you couple position the bridge forward/back/angled to better match the intonation range needed. Finny since this one seems to have more range than most TOMs already?

- Douglas C.

 

[jb_abides]

Would like to see more pics, angled and also he could flip it over and confirm 3-hole. Might have manufacturing stamp marks.

Looks like a 3-hole "Top Adjust" TOM, with the screw orientation of a Nashville, if I am seeing the picture correctly...? Thus the long travel.

Contrast with the 'classic' Top Adjust:



Then again, someone here might instantly know exactly what it is!

 

[LPR6]

I’ve definitely seen OP’s bridge before on Customs. I’ve never seen one of those top-adjust bridges as far as I know.

 

[Strings Jr.]

It's a Schaller made, 3-point. They were used for a short while on just about everything that normally got a Nashville TOM. They came in gold, chrome, and even nickel. This non, top-adjust version was fine, but the top-adjust versions sucked. Especially the early version with the plastic saddles. They "improved" them later by changing to brass saddles, but they still sucked. The only "positive" aspect of the top adjust was the fact that you could grab the brass saddle with pliers, pull it straight out, flip it over and re-notch it if needed for alignment purposes. Talk about a nightmare, try inspecting and setting intonation on 100 + guitars a day with top adjust bridges. Personally, I don't recall ever using anything other than the center hole on any 3-point bridge. So one may ask, "why were they even used?". It was because this was a transitional period from using hand-made gages, guides, and templates to CNC. At first, some were not perfect, and if a guitar made it to Final Assembly and the intonation could not be set, it was scrap. So a few were definitely shipped with the 3-point set in the "off-center" position. Same is true for another part, the thumbwheels for the Nashville TOM. When a neck pitch problem surfaced, the "hollowed-out" thumbwheel was born. It allowed the thumbwheel to be lowered past the top of the bushing to achieve the correct action spec. Class dismissed.