Stray Vintage Trem problems?

[olddawg]

I recently had the rosewood neck planed and re-fretted on my 1983 MIJ Strat. One of the reasons I had the work done because I have been playing the guitar since 1986 and it had the most usable and stable vintage trems I have ever played. Now.... neither the lutihier nor I can get it as stable as it once was. I know most of the tricks. I use a lot of pencil lead, lol. The only thing I can think of that is different is they replaced the original nut (which was some kind of special proprietary black plastic) with a bone one. Bone is supposed to be superior and their work was impeccable. I am just annoyed that we can't get the trem as stable as it once was. Is there a trick with bone that I should know? Any suggestions. I know Strat trems are alchemy.

[Silvertone Jockey]

My higher self is telling me that the problem is in the neck. I'm assuming it was removed, was any shimming or anything done at the joint? Another possibility is that the refret job added wedge to the fret board which (edit) adds to the truss rod tension and the combined tension is causing minute changes in the relief spec. Try slacking the truss just a bit and re-check the neck joint for anything suspicious.

Another possibility is you might just need to break it in again. It held the tune because it was well broke in....... time to put some miles on it

[olddawg]

My higher self is telling me that the problem is in the neck. I'm assuming it was removed, was any shimming or anything done at the joint? Another possibility is that the refret job added wedge to the fret board which (edit) adds to the truss rod tension and the combined tension is causing minute changes in the relief spec. Try slacking the truss just a bit and re-check the neck joint for anything suspicious.

Another possibility is you might just need to break it in again. It held the tune because it was well broke in....... time to put some miles on it

No shims. The neck joint is stable. I've never heard of a truss rod adjustment affecting trem stability. But I guess it's possible if it was super loose. You are probably right about breaking it in. I'm so used to squeezing worn frets that I squeeze it out of tune with the new ones if I don't watch it, lol.

[Paleo Pete]

Most likely the nut slots are tight and strings are binding. The black one you described was probably graphite. I use a little graphite from a #2 pencil in the nut slots on my Squier every time I change strings, it helps but doesn't fix the problem. Also installed a Tremsetter years ago, helps but still not perfect.

Check the screws at the front of the bridge. A dab of vaseline on each will help them pivot easier, I set mine with only the outside two holding, the other four are loose. They made 2 styles, one with 2 screws (older bridges) and one with 6. I set my 6 screw to the older setup. The 4 inside screws are not touching at all, the outside two are holding the bridge in position but loose enough it can still pivot. I haven't noticed any real difference. If those screws are getting in a bind that might be causing trouble. Typically you want the bridge plate set so it floats just barely off the guitar body so those screws are a pivot point and don't scrape anything as it moves. I checked mine by slipping a piece of paper under it then setting the screws on each end so I could just feel it drag.

You can also get some welding torch tip cleaners and very carefully widen the nut slots slightly, that might help keep the strings from getting in a bind. Careful though, you don't want them deeper if slot height is right, and you don't want them wide enough to allow them to buzz inside the nut slots.

I've never heard of truss rod affecting bridge function, its one and only function is to set neck relief so the strings have a little more room to vibrate in the middle of the neck. I'm constantly having to explain that in guitar forums, many of the younger crowd seem to think the truss rod adjustment is critical to both action and intonation...BUNK...The truss rod has a very minor affect on action, you won't notice it, and absolutely no affect on intonation.

Strings vibrate in a pattern similar to a jump rope but on a much lesser scale. You need just a little room in the middle of the neck so the strings can vibrate in that wider pattern and not buzz against the frets. It's called neck relief. That's the only thing the truss rod does, set neck relief. If you want to check it, put a capo on the 1st fret, then hold the top string down at the fret where it meets the body, usually around 14th. At the 7th or 8th fret you should have from .010" to .015" in general between string and top of fret. If you play with a light touch you can get by with less, heavy handed guys like me need it on the high side. But it shouldn't affect the tremolo at all.

All this is reminding me I need to go through mine and lube everything, recheck all the settings...basically it's time for a yearly check up...what sucks is I have to do 5 guitars...

[Chuck H]

Agree with above. Nut binding, not truss rod shift.

In order for the truss rod to affect tuning so that the trem didn't seem stable the physical shift would need to be such that the action height was visibly altered. I get the feeling that we're not talking about only a couple of cents of shift here. It's a good phenomenon to be aware of though since it does happen. Sticky truss rods can sometimes even be heard to pop or snap, But even this isn't as severe as, say, a neck that warps a lot with temperature. Which is eminently more noticeable and still wouldn't be perceived as a trem problem.

A graphite nut is a good solution. Bone absolutely does bind. I've read that whale bone has natural oils that minimize this, but that hasn't been my experience. I've taken great pains to observe proper slot depth, curved slope, string angle, etc. and there is still always more binding than with a graphite nut. Widening the slots and, if necessary, angling them can help, but making that adjustment to a nut without affecting the slot depths at all might prove tricky and still may not fix the problem entirely. Probably easier to change back to a graphite nut. Beware when buying one. Many are just cheap, soft, black plastic with a little graphite in the mix just so they can say it's there. Those nuts work fine actually, but wear out quickly.

[olddawg]

Agree with above. Nut binding, not truss rod shift.

In order for the truss rod to affect tuning so that the trem didn't seem stable the physical shift would need to be such that the action height was visibly altered. I get the feeling that we're not talking about only a couple of cents of shift here. It's a good phenomenon to be aware of though since it does happen. Sticky truss rods can sometimes even be heard to pop or snap, But even this isn't as severe as, say, a neck that warps a lot with temperature. Which is eminently more noticeable and still wouldn't be perceived as a trem problem.

A graphite nut is a good solution. Bone absolutely does bind. I've read that whale bone has natural oils that minimize this, but that hasn't been my experience. I've taken great pains to observe proper slot depth, curved slope, string angle, etc. and there is still always more binding than with a graphite nut. Widening the slots and, if necessary, angling them can help, but making that adjustment to a nut without affecting the slot depths at all might prove tricky and still may not fix the problem entirely. Probably easier to change back to a graphite nut. Beware when buying one. Many are just cheap, soft, black plastic with a little graphite in the mix just so they can say it's there. Those nuts work fine actually, but wear out quickly.

I think you are right Chuck. The luthier told me the nut melted in the process of removing the old frets. It's a beautiful job, especially since he planed the fretboard. I think he thought he was doing me a favor with the bone nut and didn't realize that I use the term as much as I do. I've played this game before.... Had old players refretted then not liked them as much. This Strat I completely wore out. I don't want to replace the nut. I'll widen up the grooves a bit and hit it with a #2 pencil again. The graphite stains the bone. Lol. It took me years to get the old beast "just right" it will probably take another year of adjustments to reach the Goldilocks zone on it again.

[Chuck H]

Some would consider it a bad idea, but...

You can also reduce binding by just barely rounding the breakover points at the front and back of the slot. Not so much as to be visible. That would affect tuning accuracy too much and can even cause noticeable buzzing in rare cases. Just take off the very sharp edge at 45* to the front and read faces of the nut.

A good trick for widening the slots is to color the bottom of the slots so you'll know when you're messing up and need to stop or be more careful.

[Paleo Pete]

A good trick for widening the slots is to color the bottom of the slots so you'll know when you're messing up and need to stop or be more careful.

I like that idea. I've been thinking about trying a graphite nut on my Squier, it binds every time even though I use a pencil on it. The pencil lead helps, but doesn't stop it. as far as marking it though, that's always a good idea. I had to replace the nut in my Takamine acoustic, I was not happy to find they had used a plastic nut in my $800 guitar...I traced it onto the blank before I started so I could get everything as close as possible, and once it fit I traced the string spacing and slot height. When cutting the nut slots it only took a few minutes to rough it out, and a half hour or more to finish up because of constantly checking it....but the pencil line for height was really good to have...

So when trying to widen them, I agree, nothing beats marking it. I do the same when crowning frets, black the tops with a Sharpie. I want to finish with a very fine line down the center...it wears off pretty fast with a few minutes of polishing with some scotchbrite or cratex.

I have the black in the nut slots of my Strat from 15 years of pencil lead, can't do much about it, but it does help a little so I live with it.

[olddawg]

Honestly... I think the old nut was a mixture of plastic (maybe even nylon) and graphite that had out gassed enough over the years to be hard and slick and had decades of pencil lead applications from regular string changes to make it smooth as silk even with vintage string trees (3in 1 oil in them from a toothpick). I guess I can't expect a new nut to act like that. BTW... From my experience you NEVER want to burnish down the fret side face of a nut. That will definitely mess up the intonation of open chords. Honestly, I don't know why more guitars don't use Zero Frets. All of these setup problems would go away and string gauge wouldn't matter.

[Paleo Pete]

I agree with that, I love a zero fret. I Have an old Epiphone FT130 acoustic that's damaged, I've been seriously considering building an electric guitar just for that neck. It got dropped years ago and the neck was jammed into the body, wrinkled the wood on the neck side of the body, I think it moved the block the neck is bolted to. I tried to fix it several years ago, it lasted about a year and the glue let go. Back to the original state...Something like a SG body might work pretty well, but it would have to be made specifically for the scale of that neck so I probably couldn't use a prefab body, I'd have to make it myself. All I need right now is the wood and a bridge...Oh and a couple of pots and 2 strap buttons...the wood is my main hang up, I can't afford a slab of guitar wood...

I never touch the neck side of a nut, moving things around would cause intonation problems. When I replaced the one on my Takamine all it got was a light sanding with very fine sandpaper to smooth it a little. And that was done before it was mounted so it wouldn't cause any problems. It took a lot of sanding everywhere else, but the neck side was barely touched to begin with.

[Steve A.]

You can also get some welding torch tip cleaners and very carefully widen the nut slots slightly, that might help keep the strings from getting in a bind. Careful though, you don't want them deeper if slot height is right, and you don't want them wide enough to allow them to buzz inside the nut slots.

Yes!!! I have a $70 set of nut slot files but I don't want to wear them out unless I really really need to use them. A seller on eBay was selling the tip cleaners as SS rods with a "specially modified" jeweler's saw for way too much money so I ordered a set of tip cleaners from Amazon for a fraction of the cost. While a jeweler's saw might work well if a loose nut was in a vise I just held the rods in my hand with the nut on the guitar.

Gibson is putting PLEK'd nuts on some of their new guitars and they are terrible! I usually find factory nut slots to be too high (hence my $70 set of files) but the new Gibsons are way too close for comfort. The corian material they use grabs on to the strings so it is hard to keep the strings in tune. Try this test: push down on the string between the nut and the tuner to see if that raises the pitch of the string. Bingo! (I always prestretch strings but they will still go flat if the strings are binding in the nut.)

While I like to keep the width of the nut slot right on the money for the fretboard side of the nut I found that widening the tuner side of the nut slots can keep them from grabbing on to the strings for dear life.

While trying to correct these problems I cut a few of the nut slots too deep (note to self: be sure to remove ALL of the dust from the nut slot before deciding that it needs to be cut some more!) I've been using baking soda and superglue to fill nut slots that are too deep...

How to fix a buzzing nut slot on a guitar using Hot Stuff thin CA glue and baking soda

Getting back to your guitar with 20-20 hindsight I think it would have been a good idea to measure *everything* before sending it out for a complete refret job...

Steve Ahola

P.S. I don't use whammy bars but I do bend the shit out of my strings- since learning how to set up my guitars the past year I can do 5 fret bends with .010's... it sure makes a difference!

P.P.S. Speaking of zero frets these kits from StewMac look pretty cool for $30!

http://www.stewmac.com/Materials_and...lide_Nuts.html

P.P.P.S. Speaking of StewMac their new catalog is a BIG improvement over their older ones which were not organized very well. Check yer mailbox!

[olddawg]

So it's definitely the bone nut. I can hear it kink. Very subtle. What I'm going to do is widen out the string slots a bit on the peg side of the nut and use some more graphite. This just goes to show you that there isn't always magic in old tech. (Bone vs. Plastic Composite) What little I may have gained in tone I may have lost in tuning stability. I mean it's very usable. It just isn't what it was.