Installing A New Guitar Saddle

Get the guaranteed best price on Solid Body Electric Guitars like the Squier Vintage Modified Jazzmaster Electric Guitar at Musicians Friend. Get a low price and. Though bandied about haphazardly and almost always inappropriate, when applied to the life and times of Steve Earle, the adjective extreme is not hyperbole. Factory settings. One of the main reasons why your newly delivered acoustic guitar requires the string action lowering is because most mass produced acoustic guitars. Installing A New Guitar Saddle' title='Installing A New Guitar Saddle' />Mike Mikes Guitar Bar. Theres no experience quite like that of a well kept, totally original vintage guitar. Its like opening a rift in the time space continuum, a direct passageway to an era of craftsmanship that many claim is far behind us. The feel of an old finish or the smell of an old case is enough to drudge up memories of timeless tunes and the players that made them. As a shop, its crucially important we know our stuff and that were able to confirm the originality of a piece. This builds trust with potential buyers, and trust is something we value greatly around here. We take pride in the stock we offer, and when something isnt original we make sure to say so. This doesnt necessarily mean that all original is synonymous with better though. Lets be realistic any thing that comes into contact with human beings will wear and deteriorate with use, no matter how precious or well maintained. Some parts simply must be changed as they fail, whether by age or use, and as many of our most hallowed vintage instruments reach the age of 7. At least, those of us without infinite cash at hand. Over the many years Ive spent repairing, restoring, and dealing in vintage guitars, Ive seen many examples of parts that were original but kept a vintage instrument from being fully playable, which is kind of the point of the thing in the first place. If its come to that, why not replace the malfunctioning part My personal mantra is this Functionality over Originality. WtFH0EOj6Y/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Installing A New Guitar Saddle' title='Installing A New Guitar Saddle' />Amid the chaos of a canceled Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia attended by white supremacists, neoNazis, and other members of the socalled. Heres a tutorial on how to string a guitar properly. Replacing guitar strings is not rocket science, but there are some things youve got to keep in mind. If not. Get the guaranteed best price on Nuts Saddles like the Graph Tech String Saver Saddle Barrel for Mustang, Jaguar, Jazzmaster, and Jagstang Electric Guitars Set of. Are you seeking reliable information and or the evaluation of your vintage guitars actual real world value today JVGuitars has a simple solution and that is a. NEW Now you can upload photos with your repair estimate request If you have a picture of your guitars condition, upload it to our estimator platform and well be. TgJt2GJh28U/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Installing A New Guitar Saddle' title='Installing A New Guitar Saddle' />Disclaimer Im about to list some parts on vintage guitars that are prone to wear or failure, and as I list them I want you to keep the Hippocratic Oath of Do no harm in mind. Im suggesting that these parts be changed, but not at the expense of damaging the instrument in the process. Disclaimer 2 Also, these opinions are those of Michael Adams alone, not necessarily of Mike Mikes Guitar Bar. Disclaimer the third except for a single case, all of these parts should be saved and kept close to the instrument in the event of future sale. A guitar with a changed part and the original included will always do far better on the market than without. Disclaimer 4 Disclaim Harder I still love an all original vintage guitar. Surgical Tubing. Early Strats and Teles often used surgical tubing to mount pickups instead of the springs commonly used now. This tubing is squishy yet firm and provides adequate resistance between the bobbin and the pickguard, enabling height adjustment. After many decades, that tubing dries out and crumbles, becoming brittle and plasticky rather than the pleasantly gummy texture of its youth. Obviously, this is no good and renders pickup height adjustment impossible. Ive opened up too many vintage instruments to find the pickups rattling around in their mounts, the telltale yellow crumbs of tubing still in the cavities. Its best the replace these wholesale, either for springs or new tubing. I/41PiR5XFCHL.jpg' alt='Installing A New Guitar Saddle' title='Installing A New Guitar Saddle' />Many aftermarket pickup makers include tubing with their wares, even. Originality be damned, theres really not a good argument for keeping them in there. Just look at this sickening mess. Pickup Foam Also Fender Mute FoamIn my latest Demystifying article, I briefly discuss the tendency of old mute foam to degrade into a hard, sticky goop. The same is true for the foam stuffed under the pickups on old Jazzmasters and Jaguars  that stuff is disgusting. Once the foam turns to tar, it no longer allows the pickups to be adjusted, and it leaves residue everywhere, including your hands. If left in its place, it can damage the other parts its stuck to, so it really is best to toss this stuff the moment its discovered. When your original foam turns to a gummy blob, its time to forget about being original and replace that stuff. Dont even bother keeping it. Nobodys going to be excited to find a bag of guitar jerky in their case. A srtripped pickup screw L and a rusty pickguard screw R that I had to remove because it fused with hardware. Rusty or Stripped Screws. I dont know about you, but I have a soft spot for the patina of an old guitar, especially when hardware takes on a dulled nature. I find nickel and gold hardware especially alluring as the plating wears and oxidizes. All of this stuff looks great, but once rust takes hold of screws they become more of a nuisance than anything. Stripped pickup screws take the fun out of functional, while rusty, frozen saddle height screws defeat the whole purpose of them being there in the first place. If a pickguard screw turns to ground cinnamon when you try to remove it, its best to simply replace it. If youre concerned about gleaming new screws looking out of place on your guitar, there are plenty of places to find aged hardware these days. Keep the old parts in a bag, tuck them in the case, and move on with your life. Frets. Folks make a big deal about original frets, and I get that In many cases, such a thing speaks to the quality of care the guitar experienced over the years. To contrast, a sloppy refret is a good indicator that the guitars been mucked with in some other way. Original frets are a nice thing to have, but that doesnt mean the guitar will play any better. Like anything else, frets wear over time, and at the very least theyll need a good dressing. South Vista Point Golden Gate Bridge Address. Too often guitars are advertised as having plenty of life left when theyre actually on the deck with deep grooves from a chord masher. Personally, I dont balk at a good refret except in cases where I dont like the fret size used, like putting Dunlop 6. Musicmaster or something. I count a quality fret job as a good thing, one that ensures my guitar will be playable for years to come. Even Pancake, my beloved 6. Jazzmaster is at a point in its life where those original frets are just too low, and Im a guy that likes them low to begin with. Im loathe to make changes, but even I have to admit that new frets are the one thing that will make this guitar even better than it already is now. And so, thats exactly whats going to happen this summer. Pots, Etc. Going back to the idea that a guitar should be functional, electronic parts can and will fail with age and use, they were never designed to last forever. Now, a crackling, dirty pot canand Id argue shouldbe first be addressed with some contact cleaner. However, if the pots sweep is nonexistent or it just wont pass signal any more, replace it. Dont even trip, just get it out of there With so many options for high quality components like Emerson, Bourns, and even tighter tolerance CTS pots, this is one decision thats easy to make. And as Ive said before, keep those components if you sell. Sometimes a pot can be salvaged by dismantling and repairing it, but thats a lot of work for a relatively small payout. To Re or Not To Re Its a hard thing for non guitar oriented folks to understand, but a worn finish doesnt mean it needs to be redone. I remember the first time my parents saw my beat to hell 7. Precision Bass, my dad cried out, That needs new paint It took the better part of the afternoon to explain that no, the finish is fine and even desirable to some just as it is, and no, Im not going to touch it. Still, there are cases where a refinish is a perfectly acceptable and possibly necessary thing to do. If the guitar in question had a previous owner that just didnt know better and decided it would look great in his favorite color of latex paint, thats a good candidate for a refin.