Tips From The Tech: Getting The Buzz Out Of Your Bridge

By: Josh Lucas

Hey folks, I’ve actually been working more with our Tech Brandon lately. He’s been showing me some of the little ins-and-outs and life hacks that make his life easier here at the shop, and ultimately make all our lives easier as players.

One issue we’ve got comments about that’s usually very easy to solve is when a customer is having some open-string buzz, despite nothing seeming out-of-whack with the setup.

Usually, the ball of the string might be caught at the very end of the bridge pin, compared to being secured snugly against the bridge plate by the bridge pin.

It’s important to remember that the operative word here is “pin.”

They are used to pin the ball end against the bridge plate–they’re not meant to hold your ball at their tip–if they were, they would be called sleeves rather than pins.

There are a couple of remedies that we recommend. The simplest would be to secure your ball underneath the bridge where the bridge pin meets the guitar’s bridge.

The way that requires just a tiny amount of work, you can do while you’re changing strings.

The first and most important thing to remember is to choose a method and stick to it. You want to make sure you keep each pin for its specific slot. You don’t want to switch out your high E bridge pin for your low E bridge pin, you want to have the pin that is made for the size string that it will be holding. When you take off your strings, either work from your low E left to right, or right to left, and keep the pins in order.

Next, you’ll want to take one of the pins and file the slotted side of the pin down at an angle. You don’t need to file the whole thing, just file the tip down at an angle so that the ball won’t catch on the bridge pin.

That’s pretty much all you need to do to get rid of this pesky problem, and also to prevent you from thwacking your string against your beautifully carved bridge.

Got any other hacks for battling this bridge pin issue? Send them over to josh@andrewwhiteguitars.com, and you never know–your tip could make it into our next article!