While socially distancing at home's mad science projects

[212Mavguy]

...I went through my non-Bigsby or trapeze tailed Heritage guitars over the last few weeks at a very leisurely pace.  I have hit on a setup formula and order of doing things that really sounds fantastic and feels great to the fingers.  I can't stand to pay someone to set up a guitar of mine, I have to be the one, to observe the cause and effect of each adjustment.

A couple of my instruments had the strings over wrapped around a stop tail that was not designed for that, I originally was looking for more top end in the tones at that time.  I got it, but did not realize that what I had done had also thrown a ton of harmonics out the window as well as made the strings sustain less evenly at clean or especially increased gain settings, with decreased harmonic bloom during those same long sustains at clean and especially at increased gain settings.  I never knew that until the last couple weeks.

This whole thing started when I looked at a friend's Gibbons 339 at an outdoor gig, I held it up for a lookee- see and noticed that there was way too much neck relief.  He said that it was not intonation well up and down the neck and would not play in tune.  I did some things and the guitar was transformed to sounding like a Gibby ought to... Flat out amazing, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

So I started looking at my Heritage guitars with a very critical eye after that and found that there was a lot of opportunity for improvement.  I started out a while back with getting a real Gibbons factory OEM truss rod tool.  Many guitars don't have enough room cut around the truss rod for a regular auto/home repair wrench socket to fit, the socket's walls are too thick.  The factory tool has a much thinner socket wall and will fit.  In addition, the phillips head cut into the end of the handle fits the instrument's itty bitty cover plate screws perfectly.

After adjusting the neck relief from what I thought was excessive to where I liked, I consistently noticed a distinct change in the feel and tones, if the guitar was actually playable.  In a couple instances, the instrument's bridge had to be raised to get enough string height.   So I'd raise each side of the bridge to about one turn above where the buzzing stopped.  The truss rod adjustment also causes the strings to end up closer to the pickups...

Next I intonate the saddles.  After that I went to the stop tail and set the height starting with just the first and sixth strings so that the strings after going over the saddles dive down towards the stop tail at a steepness where each string comes within a few thousandths of contacting the back of the bridge when tuned to full pitch.   If a business card can barely fit through the gap that is fine for either side.  That is where I get the results that I prefer.  However, it's certainly possible to set the stop piece higher, with a decrease in low end and increase in top end frequency response as a result.  I think that one could get to carried away in raising that stop piece too much, though.  I like the results in the described zone best personally, YMMV.  There is a fullness in the tones that is warm sounding, and more even order harmonics can be detected as well as increased harmonic content overall.  Sustain becomes more even string to string, with increased harmonic bloom in the decay while the instrument was sitting in my lap not plugged in.

Then I plugged in, noticed some similar, big changes and settled down to messing with the pickup heights, slants, and pole piece heights, the pickup adjustments are the biggest  time eater of the whole thang.  The order of doing as described, works well.

The truss rod adjustment to where the neck ought to be results in improved, more even sustain, and surprisingly more harmonic content.  The feel on the bottom half of the neck in particular was improved, very fast and low.  Higher up it retained that ease and quickness in feeling.  

The removal of the fad-dy overwrap on the tailpiece was shocking to me in its result.  Once again, there was improved bandwidth within the tones for each pickup, sustain evenness between the strings dramatically improved, and the high end detail brought out by adjusting the truss rod was balanced out in the improvement in fullness and complexity in the lower frequencies and their harmonics.  The bridge pickup still had all the higher end, the mids and bottom of each note became more complex, full and warm sounding.  Notes that could sound tinny near the top of the neck now retained their beef.  Overall the instrument became much more warm, detailed, and musical in it's output plugged in or not. 

YMMV...

[Perilmeglio2]

Great! I'm working on my guitars too and planning some crazy projects....

My poor telecaster home made is now damned relic... put a sprague orange drop inside and planning to fit an onboard distortion!

I've made a trussrod cover with my name from an old unused pickguard.

Still working everyday on my guitars intonation, action and trussrod settings.

Really lot of work on the freatboards, Lemon oil and detailing... It was a long time I didn't spend so much time on my "toys" and I guess thai after covid-19 it will be not possibile again... so se have to tale this time and to use it in the best ways ww know!

[brentrocks]

I’ve been working on all my friends guitars.   Setups, tech stuff.   And the 1951 Gibbons L4 project, has taken up a good portion of my time.  Although, most of my time home has not necessarily been because of Covid.