Gotoh 510 Tune-o-matic bridge

Dave Sloven

Dave Sloven

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Has anyone tried one of these? Apparently you can get them in all of the Gotoh finishes (Black, Chrome, Gold, Cosmo Black).

The TonePros tune-o-matic in my Schecter Blackjack ATX might need to be replaced eventually as the low E saddle seems to have some unusual wear and notching on it and the string slipped off the other day with heavy picking.

I don't need the tailpiece as that guitar is string-through-body.

Here's a video of the Gotoh bridge.

 
I never had one, but I was looking at those for long time. I never did get it. The price was fair and I never heard of or read any problems. If you try it, give us an update. You can be the "test monkey". lol
 
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It will probably be a while before I get around to fitting one of these. I just ordered another set of Bare Knuckle Black Hawks for the guitar, after being frustrated my the muddiness and darkness of the Seymour Duncan AHB-1 Blackout set. In terms of hardware though the bridge would be the first thing I would replace. The tuners seem fine.
 
Happy New Year to me, I just ordered one of these in Cosmo Black and a set of SG381-20-CK MG-T tuners for $142.53 USD (including all shipping, no GST etc) from JAPARTS.CA

Apparently Gotoh are made as special orders so it probably won't ship until the end of January, then it will go via EMS from Japan direct to Australia. You can get pretty much anything in the Gotoh catalogue this way. As they are made to order I am not sure if this includes items in the Black finish, those might be old stock only.

eBay has become prohibitively expensive from overseas to Australia since the introduction of GST on all imports from overseas from companies that ship over a certain value of items to our country per year (which includes eBay and their stupid Global Shipping Program). They include the GST under 'import charges' but it is way more than 10%, they also charge a fee for collecting it (which would be illegal in Australia), so it is more like 20-25%. So you are generally much better off dealing with companies directly, as few of them deal in the volume that would cause GST problems.

So I am just using eBay for purchases inside Australia these days, after using it for 20 years to import items.

I saved at least $70 AUD over what it would have cost getting this order from guitarhey on eBay, which was the company I bought these tuners from last time. The items were slightly cheaper, the postage is cheaper, and there are no charges.

Please note this was for the bridge only, as no tailpiece is required for this guitar.
 
Dave Sloven said:
Happy New Year to me, I just ordered one of these in Cosmo Black and a set of SG381-20-CK MG-T tuners for $142.53 USD (including all shipping, no GST etc) from JAPARTS.CA

Apparently Gotoh are made as special orders so it probably won't ship until the end of January, then it will go via EMS from Japan direct to Australia. You can get pretty much anything in the Gotoh catalogue this way. As they are made to order I am not sure if this includes items in the Black finish, those might be old stock only.

eBay has become prohibitively expensive from overseas to Australia since the introduction of GST on all imports from overseas from companies that ship over a certain value of items to our country per year (which includes eBay and their stupid Global Shipping Program). They include the GST under 'import charges' but it is way more than 10%, they also charge a fee for collecting it (which would be illegal in Australia), so it is more like 20-25%. So you are generally much better off dealing with companies directly, as few of them deal in the volume that would cause GST problems.

So I am just using eBay for purchases inside Australia these days, after using it for 20 years to import items.

I saved at least $70 AUD over what it would have cost getting this order from guitarhey on eBay, which was the company I bought these tuners from last time. The items were slightly cheaper, the postage is cheaper, and there are no charges.

Please note this was for the bridge only, as no tailpiece is required for this guitar.
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Hope it all works out for you, we have one instrument with gotoh hardware and it works perfectly.
Cheers
 
EMS from Japan was super fast, got them today!

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Yeah it looks better in real life, I got some fingerprints on it and there were some strange reflections. I have been talking to my guitar tech friend and I think we will rotate the saddles 180 degrees so that it will intonate correctly with the screws pointing toward the rear like the stock TonePros bridges on Schecter string-through-body guitars do. He's going to install the bridge after our lead guitarist finishes recording his solos with it. Steve will also file the saddle slots and radius them at 14" to match the fingerboard radius.

Here are couple of photos comparing it with the TonePros.

With the new bridge sitting on top of the old (the knobs are Gotoh Cosmo Black Telecaster style knobs):

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With the bridge sitting on top of the pickup so that you can compare it with the TonePros (you can see the adjustment issue mentioned above that would require rotating the saddles):

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This is one of the first major developments of the tune-o-matic, with many distinct features.

(1) The hex screws on the saddles replace the long wire that you find on a conventional tune-o-matic to fix the position of the saddles
(2) There is a combination of a hex key height adjustment and a small grub screw lock going into the inserts, which enable precise height adjustment and lock it down, replacing the thumbwheels.
(3) There are large grub screws front and back of each post to lock the bridge to the posts.
(4) There is a dip front and back that provides more clearance for the strings at the back of the wide Nashville type saddle slots.
(5) Offset screws so that the string doesn't block access to the intonation adjustment.

By contrast the TonePros is a nice version of the conventional Nashville metric bridge with a couple grub screws to stop it falling off when you remove the strings.
 
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Thatbastarddon said:
It looks like the saddle adjustment screws are offset...the saddles may need to be swapped (1 swapped with 6 etc) to rotate 180°?
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I don't think so. I think the grooves for the strings are in the middle. I will try removing one and rotating it tomorrow. I am pretty sure that the grub screw tightens down onto the thread somehow, so it should be capable of being rotated. It might be the case that 1 needs to be swapped with 6 etc, that would make sense. The actual grooves on the saddles are currently minimal and identical to one another
 
Oh, I see what you mean now! The grub screw is in a different place on one side compared to the other. Yeah so swap 1 for 6, 2 for 5, 3 for 4 maybe.

We'll try it that way. Worse comes to worst we install it with the screws facing the pickup, slightly harder to adjust that way but I think it is tighter on an SG
 
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