Anybody know something about the strat 70s bridge made in one piece the big block and hardtail ?? anyone already used have or have experience w this bridge?

It was made of very soft metal which CBS Fender called, "Mazak". It corroded and wore down easily.

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Thanks Martian good information , i also found this:

'69 Strats still had the same steel block as they had used ever since the beginning. Sometime in the early 70's (I forget precisely when -- it could have been '72) Fender/CBS started using the Mazak one-piece cast alloy bridge (block and bridgeplate cast as a single piece). Sometime in the late 70's/early 80's they went back to the traditional assembled steel bridge. AFAIK the only difference between the original blocks and today's AV blocks is that the modern block has the holes for the string ends drilled a little deeper into the block.

You're welcome.

This sound accurate. It was in '72 at the latest. Man, those Mazak units were awful!

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Mazak is a tradename for a typical casting metal alloy (also called "pot metal"). When people talk about "zinc blocks" that's a generic imprecise term for casting metal. Casting metal is mostly zinc but it has other metals mixed with it. It melts at a lower temp than pure zinc, and when it cools down from molten to solid it doesn't shrink as much as most metals. So it's great from a production standpoint -- you can cast lots of identical parts that need little to no machining.

But it's a crappy metal in most other ways. It has the odd combination of being soft (dents easily, threads strip out easily) abd brittle at the same time. It cracks/shatters/chips pretty easily and a lot of the '70s bridges have corners cracked off near the mounting screws and/or cracked spring anchor holes.

CBS seized on the manufacturing benefits of casting and took it all the way -- casting the bridgeplate and inertia block as a single piece. The saddles were also cast pieces. Most people consider zinc inertia blocks to be inferior to steel or brass -- CBS decided to make the whole damn thing out of it.

That's not to say the Mazak bridges always sounded terrible. Trower recorded the Bridge of Sighs album with a Strat that had a Mazak bridge, 3-bolt neck, insanely thick finish, and most of the other "bad" things about the post/72 CBS Strats. (But note that he switched to vintage Strats a couple years after that and his current Strats have steel bridges and he's always sounded like Trower -- you don't really need a zinc bridge to nail that sound.)

Mazak bridges in good shape are expensive because nobody makes anything like that now, and lots of '70s Strats had their bridges upgraded back in the '80s and '90s. Now that those guitars are becoming collectable, putting them back to stock can increase their value more than the cost of paying too much for an old POS zinc bridge. Expensive doesn't always mean "better".

The hardtail bridgeplate never changed during the '70s -- it's always been steel. The stamped steel saddles were switched to the Mazak saddles in '72 but they didn't change the bridgeplate.

I just finish to bought one from ebay came off a 78.. with saddles wilkinson ...

thought more beautiful than others

Mazak (Zamak) comes from the german words:

Ma - Magnesium (Magnesium)
Z - Zink (Zinc)
A - Aluminium (Aluminium)
K - Kupfer (Copper)

It´s a mixture of those metals. Some love the sound and prefer that over steel (as some love the alu tailpieces of the old Gibson). I think it tends to break but I never saw one broken trem unit from an original ´70s Stratocaster.
I like and prefer steel anytime over Mazak.

Cheers,
Robin

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http://www.youtube.com/robinstrower
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The Mazak bridge does have a distinctive attractive look. Fender wanted it to be inexpensive to make but not look cheap -- it was for a high end guitar and they wanted it to look classy.

And it has a different sound, not necessarily a "worse" sound. Trower, Lowell George, Blackmore, lots of people got great sounds out of Mazak bridges.

And it's an artifact that's uniquely Fender. There are copies of the traditional Fender 6-screw bridge, and copies of the 2-point bridge, and "improved" versions of both of those, but the Mazak stands truly alone. Never copied by any of the aftermarket companies, not a variation of anyone else's bridge -- the Mazak is pure Fender CBS.

If you like it, there's nothing wrong with that. Just about all vintage pieces can be called "overpriced" -- I didn't mean any offense.

Fender's AVRI '70s, MIM'70s, and Custom Shop '70s all skimped on the detail of recreating the Mazak bridge. They fudged that using the excuse that there were a few early 3-bolts with the old steel bridge. But you can build a real '70s spec Strat (or restore a real '70s Strat), and lots of people love those Strats. I didn't care for them when they were new and I haven't grown to love them, but that's just my opinion.

My '79 Strat has the one piece bridge. I haven't had any issues with the base, but the saddles needed to be replaced. The strings were cutting right through the metal.

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1975 Sunburst Stratocaster rosewood finger board
1979 Stratocaster with roseowood finder board
2001 Candy Green Clapton Stratocaster
2007 Andy Summers Inspired Telecaster
2007 '51 P-Bass
2012 Taylor 110
2015 Mystic Ice Blue Deluxe Stratocaster Plus

If I get someone with one of those that has issues, I usually advise replacing parts as necessary and saving the originals for the sake of keeping original parts on hand. Pretty much all of the time the person likes the change and doesn't look back.

The worst part is the saddles themselves. Once they start wearing those grooves, they get these weird phantom buzzes that just don't go away unless you reshape the saddles, but then they look funny because you've removed all of the plating. Luckily, the "American Vintage" saddles, the 50s/60s stamped style, will replace the originals perfectly.

I completely agree with you. I still have the original saddles in the case. I'm guessing that if I ever sell the guitar someone will want them.

I replaced mine with vintage style saddles. I also had to replace the frets and give it a good set up.

My MAZAK units did not corrode. I did put Graph Tech replacement saddles on them because the original saddles caused too much string breakage from grooves. My vintage bent steel saddles got grooves too, but they weren't as bad as those '70s saddles (so I never put Graph Tech's on my real old guitars).

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My other guitar is a Strat.

I also had the cast one-piece bridge and saddles with my '72 Strat. I was so young at the time, I didn't know the difference. in the mid-eighties, I replaced the whole assembly with a proper '60s steel bridge and saddles which improved tone and intonation capability immediately. I still have that old cast bridge in case I ever have to reinstall it and sell the guitar.