psguitar Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Hi New on this club My name is Pierre living near Paris France Owner since a couple of days of a H-137 i bought to Brent The 137 is f..k perfect but the rear lollar mike which is a little high. I'm often using a stratocaster, and the strings of the 137 are a littjle too high from the neck. Does anyone have found a solution or do i have to bring my guitar to a garage to plane the body? thank's for your answers Pierre
cosmikdebriis Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Hi... Welcome to the club... (From England). If you bought the guitar from Brent then it may be best if he answers your question. I'll send him a message for you. Also... Here is a link to a Heritage for sale in France... http://www.leboncoin.fr/vi/34478139.htm?ca=4_s Good luck.
brentrocks Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Hi Pierre Glad you joined the club! Maybe one of our vast many minds of knowledge here might have a soulution for you....like i said in my email to you, i really dont know how to get the action any lower on that guitar, especially without buzzing really bad. Enjoy the 137
mars_hall Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 HiNew on this club My name is Pierre living near Paris France Owner since a couple of days of a H-137 i bought to Brent The 137 is f..k perfect but the rear lollar mike which is a little high. I'm often using a stratocaster, and the strings of the 137 are a littjle too high from the neck. Does anyone have found a solution or do i have to bring my guitar to a garage to plane the body? thank's for your answers Pierre Sideview pictures of the pickups and bridge relative to the body/string height would help us to analyze your problem.
brentrocks Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 i thought the action was pretty low on that guitar like it was...i know with the right adjustments and fretwork, you can always get it lower.....but then if the weather changes, it doesnt take much for that setup to go away.
GuitArtMan Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 I have to have the action a little bit higher on my H-137 than on my other Heritages so that the strings don't buzz off of the bridge pickup. It doesn't really bother me as the guitar plays and sounds fantastic, and the Lollar P90s are so well balanced. Still I can't help but feel they should have used soap bar P90s and not dog ear P90s. Pierre - don't plane the body to lower the pickups!!! If you really must lower the pickups look into replacing them with soap bar style P90s.
big bob Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Brent, I believe Pierre is wanting to lower the pups not the action. If this is the case you should remove the pups and if you are lucky they may be shimmed, if so remove the shims if not I agree with gitartman look to find slimer pups. I bet throwback could whip some up to whatever spects you want..
Mikenov Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 I may not understand the issue here but I had a situation with my 535 where it had schallerpickup screws but when I switched over to seymour duncans the screws were not long enough because the schallers aren't as deep. My tech extends the screw holes so we could fit the Seymour screws in the pickup cavatily which allowed us to adjust the seymour further down without coming off the screw. I kept having the pickup cave in b/c it was n the very end of the smaller schaller screws. Were pretty close so this worked
111518 Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Lollar has some information on his site about choosing the correct dogear P-90 for a particular guitar. It includes the exact dimensions of the pickups and shims that he offers; might indicate if a shorter replacement is available. (He says he offers the shortest available American-made dogear, but I have no idea whether or not it is shorter than what Heritage installs on the 137.) Here's the link: http://blog.lollarguitars.com/technical/ch...-dogear-pickup/
cosmikdebriis Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 I'm a little confused here also... (Which is why I didn't try and help in the first place) I haven't owned Lollar Pups or a 137 so excuse my ignorance. I'm getting the impression the pickups screw directly on top of the guitar body and that there is no routed "hole" in the guitar to accept them :wink: As such the thickness (Depth) of the pickup has to be matched to the guitar and the only adjustment is to raise the pickups with shims. In this case the pickup is too high at the bridge and so lowering the bridge (to improve the action) causes "buzzing" on the pickup body (as distinct from the frets)? If this is indeed the case then I can't see any remedy short of machining the guitar body or fitting "slimmer" pickups (if they are available). Unless, as someone has already mentioned, there are shims under the pickup that can be removed? This begs the question(s). Are the Lollars a factory fit? If so then do other 137's suffer the same problem? If not then perhaps the neck on this particular guitar is at a slightly different angel to other 137's? (Though, because of the proximity of the pickup to the bridge, the neck angle would need to be very wrong. One final comment... If the pickup is so close to the strings that they buzz on the pickup body, then the pickup is still going to be way to high even if you adjust the action to clear it. ??? On the other hand though... I may be entirely misinterpreting the problem ;D
Kuz Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 OK, Easy everybody. 1. The 137 has dog ear p-90s 2. IF there is a shim under the bridge pickup, then the shim can be removed and sanded down to suit to fit. 3. IF there is no rubber shim under the pickup (or under both pickups for that matter) then the only thing you can do is screw the pole pieces down so they are flush with the plastic of the pickup. (you MAY be able to sand the bottom plastic of the dog-ear itself to get the pickup slightly lower) -you don't want to use soap bar p-90s (the holes for the dog-ear p-90s will show) -you don't want to plain the fret board. -Guitarist have been using this dog-ear p-90 set up for over 55 years without problems. Pics would be very helpful (and to be honest, if anything I would like to INCREASE the height of my bridge dog-ear p90s to better balnace out with the neck pickup) SEND pics and we can guide you through this...
Cryoman Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 Kuz nailed it. My 137 has no shims under the Lollar P-90s. You are necessarily limited in action by the height of the rear pickup. Major deconstructive surgery would be required. I suppose you could order & install the pickup into a lower height pickup housing. I have my 137 set for the mimimal height above rear pickup and it plays pretty low & fine. I can make measurements. This guitar with P-90s may just not get as low as some other guitars actions without a new pickup housing. Cheers, Cryoman PS. Sanding down the base of the housing may buy you .010" to .020" but I sure wouldn't do it it or like it. You are going to end up with a pretty thin "dog ear" before you make noticeable difference in pickup to string clearance. Me thinks the nature of these older, non adjustable P-90s is to play 'em how you get 'em.
Cryoman Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 By quick, visual inspection, I have .100" to .125" (1/10 to 1/8th inch) between forward edge of rear P-90 and string bottom on my H-137. It has a medium-low action with plenty of room to bring it lower.
big bob Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 By quick, visual inspection, I have .100" to .125" (1/10 to 1/8th inch) between forward edge of rear P-90 and string bottom on my H-137. It has a medium-low action with plenty of room to bring it lower. open or fretted
yoslate Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 Hmmm?? Some sound advice and technical info, here. I have a difficult time imagining a P-90 137 wouldn't play just fine with a set up appropriate to that guitar. And I certainly wouldn't start grinding away on anything! If I wanted the instrument to have the lighter touch that really low action would give, and I couldn't set it up any lower, I'd just restring it with a lighter gauge wire! But this whole concept is a little odd to me, though, as I like to have to work a bit for a note.
GuitArtMan Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 Ok here are some measurements of my Heritages: H-535 Anitique Natural - 4/64" at the 12th fret high E and low E H-535 Dark Almod burst - refretted by Michael Tuttle - 3/64" at the 12th fret low E to high E H-137 - 5/64" at the low E to high E - I can't lower it any more or it buzzes off the bridge pickup plain and simple. There is no shim under the bridge pickup. If it had a soap bar I could adjust the pickup lower. It's a dog ear. It will require surgery to lower the action any more. Guess what? It still plays great and I love it!
Kuz Posted January 19, 2009 Posted January 19, 2009 Ok here are some measurements of my Heritages:H-535 Anitique Natural - 4/64" at the 12th fret high E and low E H-535 Dark Almod burst - refretted by Michael Tuttle - 3/64" at the 12th fret low E to high E H-137 - 5/64" at the low E to high E - I can't lower it any more or it buzzes off the bridge pickup plain and simple. There is no shim under the bridge pickup. If it had a soap bar I could adjust the pickup lower. It's a dog ear. It will require surgery to lower the action any more. Guess what? It still plays great and I love it! All my Heritages are set up by either myself or my luthier and are 4/64th at 12th low E to high E (with 10-46 on all except the 525 which has 11s). OH, yes. How about some p-90 eye candy?!? 8)
GuitArtMan Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 All my Heritages are set up by either myself or my luthier and are 4/64th at 12th low E to high E (with 10-46 on all except the 525 which has 11s). OH, yes. How about some p-90 eye candy?!? 8) I would like to lower the action on my 137 to 4/64", but it wont clear the bridge pickup - well not with my right hand at least! ;D Seriously, any more than the lighest picking will buzz of the bridge pickup with the action that low.
Spectrum13 Posted January 20, 2009 Posted January 20, 2009 My 137 has the action pretty low and the screws are very close to the strings but no problems. If I wanted to get the bridge P90's lower, Jason's short neck cover with the right combo of shims would be the least evasive. [/img] KP90.jpg KP90.jpg_thumb
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