H150 Stop Bar

[buzzy]

2 hours ago, Jerkey said:

Rockabilly we're all different animals. I'm guessing you play your guitar standing up hanging low. I don't play standing up for the most part and if I do, my guitar hangs midway so yes the tailpiece bugs the crap out of me. And still no refund as of yet....

 

I do a lot of playing while sitting on the couch.  I do not wear my guitar low while standing (quite the contrary).

I do spend some time muting at the bridge.  The only time that I feel the tail piece is when I forget to add a ball end to the string when I top wrap.

I'll try to pay a little more attention to how I play & what I feel behind the bridge.

[bolero]

WHERE"S THAT CONFOUNDED BRIDGE?

[davesultra]

For years I played Gibby style guitars, and am sure many of them had tailpieces that sat up high. Odd thing was, I never really noticed nor cared. It played well and sounded good, that’s all I cared about. It wasn’t until the age of the guitar forums, that these things, and all other forms of “corksniffery” changed the way I view guitars. Not sure if it’s for better or worse.

[HANGAR18]

3 hours ago, davesultra said:

 “corksniffery”

LOL!!!

[mark555]

On 10/6/2018 at 2:13 AM, Kuz said:

Hangar is correct, that is a crap guitar with an awful neck angle (a polish piece of poop, but poop none the less).  I will never, ever, buy a guitar that is top wrapped over the stop tail because you can be stuck with a guitar like this one.

I have owned over 15 Heritage guitars and have never had to set the stop tail high to get the strings over the back of the bridge.  I have a McIntuff, Gibson ES-345, and two Collings City Limits guitars where I can set the stop tail as low as I want without the strings hitting the back of the bridge.

Heritage should be ashamed to even put that guitar on the market let alone come up with that bullsh!t excuse.  

It obvious that either they don’t know how to build a quality guitar for sale or they are Just shoveling sh!t out the door intentionally and lying about the issues.

You must be angry John, not like you to use some of those words !!!

[mark555]

On 10/6/2018 at 7:15 PM, Conneazoo said:

Send it back.

Buy a PRS.

Send it back, get a good replacement and then buy a PRS as well!

[mark555]

First of all, what a lot of frustration you have gone for, sorry you got that, but I think that Heritage as a company have shown integrity in accepting the guitar back. As for how long it took for  e mail replies, I think every one here will tell you that's par for the course with Heritage, I doubt some of the older guys know much about computers at all.

On a separate point, I would never wrap strings round a stop bar unless the stop bar was designed for that. I know there will be those who disagree, but that's what I think.

As an offshoot of this thread regarding PRS dealing direct, I think that they are missing a percentage of business they could have if there was a relatively local retailer to the potential customer, but here in the UK, I do not know where I would go to buy a new Heritage, so offering a direct deal may make sense for them. However, for those of us who are into the Heritage culture and know how Heritage think and do things, I would have bought from Jay Wolfe even if I was at the other end of the country. Jay has a good reputation and I am pretty sure his relationship with Heritage would carry a lot of weight ensuring that everything went smoothly, even checking the guitar and ensuring you never received something that wasn't right. When buying new a good retailer is worth their weight in gold, especially if you are not saving anything by going direct.

But as a thread I recently started will tell you, my next guitar is going to be a PRS, used or new. Conneazoo said it, buy a PRS. I find their quality consistant and I really like their stuff, with the exception of plastic inlays which I feel are total put off. Any one else here think that? The only guitar I have ever bought brand new out of the box was a Japanese Tokai Les Paul, and people tell me that Yamaha guitars also come set up right.

Gibson guitars have always been inconsistant, and don't forget, Heritage was born out of Gibson.

Let us know what you end up buying,

[deytookerjaabs]

2 hours ago, mark555 said:

 

On a separate point, I would never wrap strings round a stop bar unless the stop bar was designed for that.

 

 

That's exactly what the stop bar was designed for, before the abr the tailpiece was the bridge. 

[davesultra]

Never cared for top wrapping.

[deytookerjaabs]

 

 

Regardless of opinion on top wraps the bottom line is that the bridge/tailpiece absolutely was designed to have a good length of travel while remaining a solid couple so as to be used on a variety of guitars with different angles & setups. It was a brilliant move (& IIRC explained as thus by Gibson engineers) to keep it when the tune-o-matic was designed for the user to tune in different amounts of force/vector/break on their guitar. It's a big part of what makes the tune-o-matic such a special design: flexibility. I even recall reading that the first tune-o-matic test run was top-wrapped from the factory!

One thing is clear: It was NEVER designed with the intention to be permanently decked. That is a matter of a fickle consumer base who now sees visual variation as a sign of lack of quality or worse...claiming tone robbery!! For decades one can see guitars from California to Asia Pacific built by the thousands to exacting standards thanks to our programmable machine friends. The angles that are programmed are to suggested tolerances, they are merely a matter of opinion.

I'd say, as someone who has played way too many good old american guitars: absolutist tone rules like ideal saddle height on a flattop or ideal bridge height on an arch top or ideal height of a wrap tail don't play out as having inherent superiority in real life from my experience. Worse, when you listen to luthiers/techs I've heard it all from "truss rods kill resonance" to arguing over kerfing woods. They're an insane lot who usually just justifies their method with carefully crafted rhetoric...humans y'know. 

In summation: if you desire a hand chiseled neck fitment and a carve hand pressed on giant rough sanding belt then you're going to be stuck with a good deal of variation. If you want those things to exact tolerances: buy a PRS or Collings etc. But, don't say the wrong top carve or wrong neck angle is a "quality" thing, that's bull****, nothing posted here was out of reasonable mechanical tolerance. 

 

[Spectrum13]

8 minutes ago, deytookerjaabs said:

 

Best reply in the longest time.  It is not like reading every post on top wrap and neck angles makes anyone an expert. If I was a respected builder I would never attempt to correct all the BS posted online. Right on deytookerjaabs, do we want CNC or old world hand built? 

 

 

One thing is clear: It was NEVER designed with the intention to be permanently decked. That is a matter of a fickle consumer base who now sees visual variation as a sign of lack of quality or worse...claiming tone robbery!!

. They're an insane lot who usually just justifies their method with carefully crafted rhetoric...humans y'know. 

In summation: if you desire a hand chiseled neck fitment and a carve hand pressed on giant rough sanding belt then you're going to be stuck with a good deal of variation. If you want those things to exact tolerances: buy a PRS or Collings etc. But, don't say the wrong top carve or wrong neck angle is a "quality" thing, that's bull****, nothing posted here was out of reasonable mechanical tolerance. 

 

 

[mark555]

17 hours ago, deytookerjaabs said:

 

 

That's exactly what the stop bar was designed for, before the abr the tailpiece was the bridge. 

I know they did it back in the day, my reference was to doing it now when you actually use an ABR bridge. Judging from your contributions, you seem to know what you are talking about.

[deytookerjaabs]

14 minutes ago, mark555 said:

I know they did it back in the day, my reference was to doing it now when you actually use an ABR bridge. Judging from your contributions, you seem to know what you are talking about.

 

Nah, I'm just being a luddite! 

 

But, yeah, at some point we got to own up to whatever the hell it means to build instruments to the tune of more than 5 a year without giving in 100% to all the advancements that make stuff perfect, or at least, exacting. As in, why bother? 

The only answer for me is that there has to be an underlying aesthetic/philisophical appreciation that something like Heritage could have existed in the modern era. From the standpoint of running a competitive business the old Heritage was self-defeating in oh so many ways. But, for a dude like me, it's just cool it was still there basically stuck in 1950 with all it's flaws. Just like it's cool to take a trip on a steam powered riverboat to which people put all this time/effort into preservation of something antiquated. 

It doesn't make any sense. 

 

[skydog52]

With the tone that this man had it’s hard to argue top wrapping. 

[Yooper]

Top wrap or no top wrap, Saul Goodman.

 

 

 

[Kuz]

19 hours ago, skydog52 said:

With the tone that this man had it’s hard to argue top wrapping. 

Could this top-wrapping be due to fact that a higher action is needed for slide?  When you raise the ABR high enough the strings will hit the back of the ABR bridge.  This leaves two options; raise the stoptail or top-wrap & you can keep the stoptail lower (almost decked as the photos show).

If this is correct, I am not 100% sure this why he top-wrapped but I think many will think it is at least a plausible reason, then Skydog wanted his stoptail lower (almost decked) and not protruding out so high up above the body like the OP's guitar was shown to be.

[skydog52]

2 hours ago, Kuz said:

Could this top-wrapping be due to fact that a higher action is needed for slide?  When you raise the ABR high enough the strings will hit the back of the ABR bridge.  This leaves two options; raise the stoptail or top-wrap & you can keep the stoptail lower (almost decked as the photos show).

If this is correct, I am not 100% sure this why he top-wrapped but I think many will think it is at least a plausible reason, then Skydog wanted his stoptail lower (almost decked) and not protruding out so high up above the body like the OP's guitar was shown to be.

Definitely personal preference. 

I've read a few articles that he believed it gave his guitars more sustain. It also said he set his action slightly higher to

facilitate his slide playing. He still played a lot without slide.

Billy Gibbons top wraps.  I believe Jimmy Page did also. 

Here he is playing the SG he traded Dickey for. Of course a completely different animal. Not top wrapped.

 

http://www.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Gear---Tech/en-us/There-s-More-Than-One-Way-To-String-An-Axe.aspx

[bobmeyrick]

This may be of interest. From my friend's recently acquired Les Paul Supreme (see "NGD, but not for me..." in the Family Tree section).

[Jerkey]

Well guys I got my refund and bought a PRS McCarty 594 Single Cut 10 Top in Charcoal Burst . I will say this about PRS. There quality is flawless down to every detail of the guitar. Thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

 

[bolero]

nice axe!

congrats...that probably the style PRS I would buy, if I were to ever get another

[bolero]

8 hours ago, bobmeyrick said:

This may be of interest. From my friend's recently acquired Les Paul Supreme (see "NGD, but not for me..." in the Family Tree section).

well. there you go.

 

[HANGAR18]

2 hours ago, Jerkey said:

Well guys I got my refund and bought a PRS McCarty 594 Single Cut 10 Top in Charcoal Burst . I will say this about PRS. There quality is flawless down to every detail of the guitar. Thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

 

Wow! That's about as good as it gets right there (imho). Well done!

[davesultra]

Looks like all ended well! Nice PRS.

[Conneazoo]

20 hours ago, Jerkey said:

Well guys I got my refund and bought a PRS McCarty 594 Single Cut 10 Top in Charcoal Burst . I will say this about PRS. There quality is flawless down to every detail of the guitar. Thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

 

An absolute beauty!!!

Play and enjoy it in good health.

[Kuz]

On 10/26/2018 at 11:49 AM, bobmeyrick said:

This may be of interest. From my friend's recently acquired Les Paul Supreme (see "NGD, but not for me..." in the Family Tree section).

And I wouldn't buy that guitar either.... Strings hitting the back of the bridge even with the tail piece that high, no thanks. 

All my stoptails (6 guitars; 2 Heritages, 1 Gibson, 2 Collings, 1 McInturff) have Faber locking ABR-1 TOM & Stoptails.  All guitars have the stoptail almost all the way down to the top and the strings don't the back of the TOM bridge.  That's just my opinion, and I like my guitars set up that way.  I have he flexibility to raise the stoptail or top wrap if I want to. But I am not FORCED to top wrap because of a bad neck angle.