Taylor nut problem.

[Chuck H]

I've used cheap far-eastern nut files for odd jobs, but in the end went with sets of Hosco for guitar and bass as I moved from just doing my own instruments to working on other peoples. The difference in cut, fit and finish is worlds apart. I also have a duplicate set of StewMac files which are just fine. At a pinch you can just about get by with a set of welding tip cleaners to finish off an embryonic slot cut with an X-Acto razor saw. Our sadly departed and much-missed friend Steve Ahola was the master of workarounds to buying expensive tools - maybe he's posted something about cutting nut slots.

Another tool I use on nuts is a Stubbs needle file with the teeth ground off and stoned to give just one cutting edge. I use this to enlarge a slot after marking out with a razor saw but before finishing with a nut file.

See Sea Chief? I know Mick meant this to be helpful, but I think it illustrates my point. Guys that are good enough to get the intended results have the experience, methods and preferred tools on hand.

I've tried to convey this already so I'll just say this as frank as possible. I consider myself pretty handy with most craft associated with guitar care and adjustment and most of the times I've had to make a new nut I messed it up and had to start over. I've managed to adjust some successfully too, but no more than I've also messed up. If I take any time I've ever spent working on nuts and boil it down it demonstrates an obvious loss compared to what it would be if I'd gone to a pro in the first place.

Save yourself the headache instead of trying to save $$$ and the inconvenience of travel.

[pdf64]

A 100 mile journey to the luthier seems ‘interesting’.
It’s not as if there aren’t a dozen around South Wales, there even looks to be a couple in Cardiff.

[Sea Chief]

A 100 mile journey to the luthier seems ‘interesting’.
It’s not as if there aren’t a dozen around South Wales, there even looks to be a couple in Cardiff.

Hi pdf. It's just not affordable, fuel being £1.50 a litre ( US chaps.. would you believe this? ) that's £50 fuel plus luthier cost = £100 lets call it. My work has been hit very hard by current xyz, Im scratching a living. It is though the most sensible/ correct idea I realise.

[Sea Chief]

See Sea Chief? I know Mick meant this to be helpful, but I think it illustrates my point. Guys that are good enough to get the intended results have the experience, methods and preferred tools on hand.

I've tried to convey this already so I'll just say this as frank as possible. I consider myself pretty handy with most craft associated with guitar care and adjustment and most of the times I've had to make a new nut I messed it up and had to start over. I've managed to adjust some successfully too, but no more than I've also messed up. If I take any time I've ever spent working on nuts and boil it down it demonstrates an obvious loss compared to what it would be if I'd gone to a pro in the first place.

Save yourself the headache instead of trying to save $$$ and the inconvenience of travel.

Hi Chuck. I consider you to be the Yoda of MEF. You are right absolutely I just know it. ButI just can't afford to go this pro route. Just told pdf why ( you're yoda ear ends will droop, then a big yoda sigh etc). I am goingto have to wing it, well. If your hacksaw blade can form a 'U' but with flat bed.. I'll have to then use something to shape into just such a 'U' profile. And surely if I do it with care I might get by with asian cheapo files for this. Id love a set of fancypants files.. but £15 each? Ive got my jazzmaster top E to do too. Thanks SC

[Sea Chief]

Chaps, Ive also got a general minor issue with my jazzocaster ( jazzmaster neck on squier chinese saddle etc).

All the strings have a slightly 'damped' feel to them. A new set never quite 'rings'. It's a bit odd. Like a cheapest squier feel to the resonance of the strings ( same with capo on all frets so ruling out the nut). Strangley though the sustain is very good. A head scratcher.

Im wondering, just a hunch, if the squier saddles' few mm's of string notch "bed" points are too long, I wonder if this might provide my symptoms.

Does this ring a bell with anyone with maybe a lesser maybe squier strat? Thanks, SC

[Chuck H]

Well you're not risking much I suppose. If you absolutely can't get satisfactory results yourself you'll just be in the same pickle without spending much.

[Chuck H]

Chaps, Ive also got a general minor issue with my jazzocaster ( jazzmaster neck on squier chinese saddle etc).

All the strings have a slightly 'damped' feel to them. A new set never quite 'rings'. It's a bit odd. Like a cheapest squier feel to the resonance of the strings ( same with capo on all frets so ruling out the nut). Strangley though the sustain is very good. A head scratcher.

Im wondering, just a hunch, if the squier saddles' few mm's of string notch "bed" points are too long, I wonder if this might provide my symptoms.

Does this ring a bell with anyone with maybe a lesser maybe squier strat? Thanks, SC

IMHO the difference in tone between the block saddles and stamped saddles is negligible. I wouldn't be looking there for your problem.

Two much bigger factors would be the wood and the pickups. Since you mentioned "feel" rather than tone I'm going to guess wood. Some guitars just feel less dynamic on note attack. "I" actually like a little of this because I play a low action and the effect seems to reduce any obvious string rattle and fret buzz.

Did the guitar feel like this with the original neck?

If it is the acoustic resonant properties of the woods in the neck and body the only fix is to get a different body and/or neck or...

Believe it or not you may actually want MORE mass in the bridge. Any metal a bridge is made from will resonate less than wood. So more bridge mass makes a guitar sound, Well, more metallic (?) for lack of a better description.

Set up can have an affect too. If the bridge is a trem and you have it decked against the body it will transfer more vibration to the wood. Nearly all the Squires I've seen use the full six screw mount. If it's a trem bridge you could remove two screws (under the A and B strings), get a more massive trem block (they sell them just for the purpose of adding mass) and float the bridge off the body (unless you can't stand bridge interaction with string bends). All this would reduce transfer of string vibration to the more resonant wood of the guitar.

In truth this would probably hardly work at all because the fundamental tone of an instrument can never be changed all that much.

[pdf64]

I was thinking that possibly apart from the Scottish highlands, there’s no place on the UK mainland that would require a 100mile journey to the nearest competent luthier?
Using the Cardiff reference as a location, an internet search seems to bring up plenty of options in the South Wales area.

[Helmholtz]

Can you post close-up pics of bridge and saddles?

[nosaj]

"If No Mistake You Have Made, Losing You Are. A Different Game You Should Play"

[Sea Chief]

"If No Mistake You Have Made, Losing You Are. A Different Game You Should Play"

Chuck, can you swap your pic to this? Although it's sort of a trans yoda potato oddity.. i think it should be your pic. SC

[Sea Chief]

I was thinking that possibly apart from the Scottish highlands, there’s no place on the UK mainland that would require a 100mile journey to the nearest competent luthier?
Using the Cardiff reference as a location, an internet search seems to bring up plenty of options in the South Wales area.

50m there 50m back i mean pdf. Seriously i cant afford it & quite a risk for my 16 year old old car too.

I am -forced- ( another of my puns) into proving yoda that i can do this myself. Quite a challenge it shall be hmm. SC

[Mick Bailey]

100 miles for £50 at £1.50 a litre. That's 13.6 mpg. I'd be more worried about my car than my guitar.

[Chuck H]

Well there are a lot of different cars on the road even now I suppose.

I had a 1970 Ford F-100 with a V8. A truck notorious for getting 10MPG. I wasn't happy with that so I modified the carburetor by drilling new, finer accelerator pump jets and swedged them in, cut out the drip trays, polished the ports, beveled the butterfly flaps and trimmed any gasket material that infiltrated the port flow. Then I adjusted/changed the centrifugal advance and put in an adjustable vacuum advance. There was a period of fine tuning requiring several adjustments while I got the engine timing and the adjustable vacuum advance dialed in but in the end I was getting a little better than 15MPG from my old gas hog and it seemed to have better response and power as well.

Still, 15mpg is an expensive and environmentally irresponsible truck to drive IMO. I moved to the PNW and ditched the old pickup for a newer van (it rains a lot more here). The van has a fuel injected V6 and was only six years old when I bought it. I was looking forward to getting better gas mileage. Alas, no such luck. The van gets 15MPG.

[Sea Chief]

Well there are a lot of different cars on the road even now I suppose.

I had a 1970 Ford F-100 with a V8. A truck notorious for getting 10MPG. I wasn't happy with that so I modified the carburetor by drilling new, finer accelerator pump jets and swedged them in, cut out the drip trays, polished the ports, beveled the butterfly flaps and trimmed any gasket material that infiltrated the port flow. Then I adjusted/changed the centrifugal advance and put in an adjustable vacuum advance. There was a period of fine tuning requiring several adjustments while I got the engine timing and the adjustable vacuum advance dialed in but in the end I was getting a little better than 15MPG from my old gas hog and it seemed to have better response and power as well.

Still, 15mpg is an expensive and environmentally irresponsible truck to drive IMO. I moved to the PNW and ditched the old pickup for a newer van (it rains a lot more here). The van has a fuel injected V6 and was only six years old when I bought it. I was looking forward to getting better gas mileage. Alas, no such luck. The van gets 15MPG.

Having a v8 over the pond there, is pretty standard I think. Fewer now made/ sold I would sort of hope.. but over here in EU as a whole v8's have always been rarely found. The odd older range rover or even rarer tvr, of theodd high spec fancy bmw or benz here in UK. But that lovely v8 rumble.. seldom heard. I did have one chance of owning one: in NZ backpackers frequently buy a used car top of north island, do the two islands in it, sell again afterwards. Muggins here with his EU hat on, bought a pitifully plastic hyundai hatchback for £peanuts. Numpty. Now if ONLY Id bought an old ford v8 growler instead! Big US models were sold there too80's/ 90's, similarly your fab looking Mack logging trucks ubiquitously seen too in NZ ( you see all over the pacific NW Im sure ). And the fuel cost, to us UK'ers getting "we've got 3 dollars.. to the pound!!" ( as I joined in with the barmy army singing to & taunting the kiwis in the crowd at an England v NZ cricket test match 2001: Nathan astle hitting fastest 200 in history btw).. fuel was cheap as chips as we say. Bah! My only chance I'll ever have.

Anywhere near Snoqualmine Falls Chuck? You prolly know why I ask/ mention such a specific spot. I think my spelling reasonably accurate. My winter ritual is to hunker down in my old miners cottage fire roaring away, & watch all of TP from tip to toe (until it goes crap mid season 2 & I bail out) as I live in a similarly fir forested misty & often weird area: all rather aptly atmospheric so I get completely immersed.

SC