Les Paul Stop Tail Problem

[JoeJoe]

The stop tail anchors on my Les Paul copy have started to lift out of the body, looks like the holes in the body have become enlarged.
At present, they are sitting at an angle and not flat on the body as they should........ approx 2 - 3mm of the splines can be seen.
Although the guitar still does hold its tuning this problem spoils the cosmetic effect of the guitar.

Has anyone got any ideas as to what I can do to keep the anchors flat in the body of the guitar ?

[big_teee]

The stop tail anchors on my Les Paul copy have started to lift out of the body, looks like the holes in the body have become enlarged.
At present, they are sitting at an angle and not flat on the body as they should........ approx 2 - 3mm of the splines can be seen.
Although the guitar still does hold its tuning this problem spoils the cosmetic effect of the guitar.

Has anyone got any ideas as to what I can do to keep the anchors flat in the body of the guitar ?

I've bought imports that the inserts were loose.
I took them out and made sure everything fit right, then I glued them in.
T

[David Schwab]

You will probably have to glue them in.

Be aware that this usually happens when people screw the tailpiece down close to the body. This creates too sharp an angle to the bridge and causes the tailpiece to pull out.

The tailpiece should not be screwed too fat down. You don't want the strings to touch the back of the tune-o-matic bridge.

Some people seem to think that screwing the tailpiece all the way down will improve sustain, but it won't.

It should look something like this is relation to the height of the bridge:

[Chuck H]

+++

Since all the parts are metal, and already screwed into inserts, any vibration that gets past the bridge makes it into the tailpiece and into the body. No reason to screw the stop tailpiece down so low that the back of the tune-o-matic is contacted. Same goes for string trees. They only need to be low enough to prevent misbehavior on hard attack with open notes. This whole thing with string angle has been blown out of proportion since the late 80's. I think it's been shown that more metal mass can imrove sustain to a point. But string angle only needs to be such that there are no strings jumping out of their slots or vibrating abnormally.

Just glue the inserts. The glue wont necessarily hold onto the metal. But it will swell and harden the wood that holds the insert in place and should work just fine.

P.S. David always has the best pictures to show what he intends.

[David Schwab]

P.S. David always has the best pictures to show what he intends.

I just Google it until I find something, unless it's a photo I took. That was from one of the LP forums.

But I believe a picture is worth a thousand words. Or a dozen anyway.