Got it: 1:23 at the Memorial Service. Clear as day!

Emmett was not big on putting the new bridge on older instruments. Mine is #1212 Ironwood made in '84 and the wood is VERY hard to work. He said a lot of cutting would be involved, it would stick out far from the end, and , yeah, not advisable. He just put new brass bridge pieces in. My pickup had gotten very noisy and he replaced that, also added an adjustable truss rod, and fret work. Hope that pickup is alright - pole pieces look pretty rusty. They also tend to be microphonic. Good luck with the instrument. If you really want it back to optimal playing send it to S.E. By the way, as it is you can only use Classic tuning with light strings.

Welcome back to the Stick world and forum!

I kinda like that tail piece...I've never seen one like that before. Without having seen any part of the instrument north of the pickup, it looks in pretty good condition. Clean up (replace?) the pickup and replace the bridge screws to make them shiny, and you've got a good looking lower half of the instrument there.

As was mentioned, SE does refurbishing work on older instruments, if you're inclined to part with the $$$ and the instrument for a time. An adjustable truss rod is always worth considering.

Thank you AnDroid and Gusset!
AnDroid, useful tip for stringing - appreciated. I think this instrument will take some time to get back to a good state. Looks like it's not had an easy life. I'm not a fan of bridges that are sheet steel - the mechanical coupling is not anything like as good as a modern bridge or a 'through body' system. The nut is equally bad (see pic.). I think a trip to S.E. is in order.
I've also bought a NS/Stick so I have that to play in the interim (but I am now a lot poorer than a week ago!).

Sticky Fox - As you can see from the photo of the 3D adjustable bridge unit, it sits in a milled out cavity approximately 7/16" deep in the face of the instrument between the pickup and the butt end of the instrument. On the older ironwood era instruments with the fixed stud/screw bridge points, there's simply not enough material to cut that excavation.

I had some long chats regarding that with Emmett about my ironwood 10 string and he said there might be enough material to mill a shallower excavation to accommodate just the sliding parts mounted directly on the wood without the metal base plate but I never tried that because even then, the excavation would need to be 3/8" deep - still not leaving enough material to satisfy me it was a good idea.

And after all, the existing system works perfectly fine if you use light gauge strings and string it up to Classic. You can also string the melody side down 2 semitones to achieve the Matched Reciprocal tuning and it still intonates well enough for me and I have a discriminating ear. The only popular 10 string tuning that won't intonate on those studs is Baritone melody.

So the punchline is - leave it stock and play Classic tuning which is what most guys play anyway. Listen to Andy Salvanos to see how much one can accomplish with the original Classic tuning.

Captain,
Interesting. However, the existing system is something I'd be reluctant to replace, on a like-for-like basis because I think it can definitely be improved. If I could get a decent bridge, I might consider having the wood milled and fit an alloy or brass slab behind the body. Or something - I admit I haven't thought this through.
Your comments are, however, a vital part of my planning. I need to receive, strip and clean it, then sit down with verniers and a good pencil.

Sticky

Wouldn't a set of light Baritone Melody strings be possible on this if it was fitted with the special set of 'shaved' bridge screws, like I have on my 1985 10 string ironwood (#1642)?

The special bridge screws were just a few dollars extra on top when I bought the set of light BM strings from SE.

Yes with the shaved bridge posts you can get light gauge baritone melody to tune up pretty well although I've never tried it. I've seen those shaved posts and there's not much purchase for a screwdriver left after shaving. It takes a bit of force to turn those screws normally and I wonder how easily the shaved ones would break under pressure or if they're shaved after they are in place.
I never asked Emmett those questions but Grace would know.

Also I've heard others say that on normal stock screw/posts in MR, the 4th string won't intonate well enough. It's a normally a wound .017 but a plain .017 will have better intonation if that turns out to be a problem. My Ironwood (which I'm selling BTW) happens to intonate well enough in MR if I tune the melody strings at the 3rd marker even with a wound 4th.

You know far more about these things that I do, but the modification was made known to me by Greg & the screws were supplied by SE as a 'set' specifically for this purpose (i.e. to get correct intonation with light baritone melody strings on an ironwood 10, of which they know the serial number). Shaved screws are used on a polycrabonate Stick 'retrofit' article featured on the SE websitehttp://stick.com/instruments/tech/ericsstickretrofit/ .

That was good enough provenance for me.

Yes there's less purchase for the screwdriver, but I didn't find that an issue on installation & it's not been one since (well over a month, during which I've done quite a bit of tweaking).

So far as I'm aware the idea has been around for many years? I presume the idea was 'invented', or at least developed & implemented, by Emmett?