guitar tweaking

Subject: RE: guitar tweaking
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 May 19 - 07:30 AM

well the reason I've bought so many Yamahas is that I like the transducer package - and(although there are exceptionss) the quality control is generally good.

However I put K and K westerners on my Faiths and I concur they're excellent - although you need a painstaking fitter to do the fitting.

So far the brass pins seem to have stabilised the tuning, and the rosewood on rosewood does seem to improve the tone of the LLX.

Anyway back to the struggle!

Subject: RE: guitar tweaking
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 May 19 - 03:42 AM

My pin-bridge guitars always get the pin-holes slotted (by me) and the thermo-crappy-plastic slotted pins replaced with non-slotted ebony or bone pins - not for tonal reasons (I'm not a believer in pins affecting tone much - strings, saddles, and picks have considerably more effect) but in order to preserve the bridge-plate and prevent the kind of damage GUEST above referred to.

Any guitar with that cheap 'n' nasty-looking matt finish on the neck and headstock gets it buffed out to gloss.

I also replace heavy enclosed tuners with open-back Waverlys, as a weight-saver and because I love the 'vintage' vibe of open-backs. The exceptions are my Lowdens, which I've put Gotoh 510 tuners on - those are superb tuners and they're going nowhere!

I've replaced pick-guards on my Martins, from the horrible pixelated-pepperoni-looking things they came with, to 'Delmar' or 'Tortis' guards.

Every guitar I ever buy gets a neck-heel strap-button added as soon as it arrives in my house.

And I've put K&K under-bridgplate transducers in all my guitars, with a standard 1/4" end-block jack.

So I guess I'm a 'tweaker'! ;-)

Subject: RE: guitar tweaking
From: GUEST
Date: 21 May 19 - 06:46 PM

I've experimented with bridge pins before, but they never seemed to have much effect on sound. I find r
eplacing plastic bridge saddles and nuts (the parts that transfer vibrations from the strings to the wood) with bone makes a difference on less expensive guitars. Another tweak that's worked for me in the past is install a metal bridge plate over the damaged wooden bridge plate inside the guitar. It improved the sound on that guitar and seemed to help it stay in tune.

Subject: guitar tweaking
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 May 19 - 05:44 PM

I know a lot of people on the site have handmade guitars , that presumably the maker presents to you in the optimum condition.

However my guitars are factory made. i think most of them come from China. Frankly i couldn't afford guitars made of the material i wanted when they were manufactured anywhere else.

i'va had Martins over the years - but they've, which i suppose were they exception - nice well constructed guitars - but ultimately not what i wanted. but even the martins , i had to tweak - change the bridge, the nut, the strings, the action, etc.

However I'm experimenting with bridge pins at the moment, Rosewood ones for the llx rosewood yamaha. Brass ones for the Fender Paramount which seems to have settled the tuning problems, i was experiencing with the shitty plastic ones it came with.

I've bought a set of steel bridge pins, and bone ones as well.

anybody else tweaking at the moment?