Some First Year "fixes" - Hummingbird and SJ

[BoSoxBiker]

My 'Bird has been with me for 11 months and the SJ 200 for  8 months. Both can be tweaked to "play like buttuh", as they say. I've commented on a few threads that I need to keep the relief in a sweet spot on these. Especially with the humid year we've had due to record breaking rainfall amounts.  Each guitar has it's own set-up issues to attend to, but I felt like I wanted to get these through any sort of break-in period. Some comments others have made caused me to pause and assess the strategy in play. it just makes sense to make sure the guitar is set up well in all areas to allow for minor changes. I do fear the SJ may have a more serious issue, but I will save that for another thread.  

I started with the 'bird. It had fewer issues to contend with. I have long decided I was not going to use the UST. I think it was Murph's thread that mudged me to do something about it. It's now safely tied to another wire inside the box. I decided that the action was too low after moving the UST out of play. I ordered saddles from Bob Colosi (one for the SJ) and fit it in this past weekend. The new saddle only needed the ends and flat side knocked down a bit to fit into the saddle-slot. I did also end up knocking 1/128ths or .0078 of an inch, (IIRC) off the bottom.

I filed .002" from both the Low-E and D nut slots and cleaned up the other 4 with less than .001" reduction. The High E, B and G strings are sitting right at .018". They could be lower, but I'm taking this slow.  The height at both the saddle and nut can be reduced a bit if needed. The action is very nice at 5.5/64th and 3.75/64. Nut slots thick to thin .021" down to .018". The relief is set to .007" using the fret 15th, capo 1st method. A slotted straight edge confirms. No ill effects when using a capo, which was an issue before when made to play easily. While I CAN  make it more buttuh-like, this is a really nice combination of buttuh playability and clearance.

I still have a bit of material that could be removed from the saddle and the nut according to Dan Erlewine, but I am taking this slow. I put a new set of Elixer Polyweb 80/20  12's on it and it's been singing like a bird for 5 days, which included a lot of rainy, humid days that would easily cause issues before. I think this set-up has more lee-way in it to handle small weather changes and such.  It's early, but so far so good. I get to have my cake and eat it, too, as the saying goes.

(ps - The only thing left is a few spots on the frets. Six spots failed the rocker-test, though none of them were horrible. This is down the road as i need to get the proper set of tools and supplies, and then practice on several clunkers with very bad fret issues. I could get into some seriously low action territory once this is done and still retain clearance for both tone and capo use. This 'bird is tight! )

(ps2 - as expensive as they are, the Stewmac nut slot files are awesome. Practice on a clunker first, though, as they cut quickly. I not get to practice bone-dust and super-glue trick on that clunker. )

 

 

[Holiday Hoser]

Jesus never had so much trouble with any Gibson I ever owned. My bird is dry and woody and always plays like a loud dream Thanks to Cali I guess

[BoSoxBiker]

On 6/14/2019 at 4:15 AM, Holiday Hoser said:

Jesus never had so much trouble with any Gibson I ever owned. My bird is dry and woody and always plays like a loud dream Thanks to Cali I guess

I think the 'bird was more in line of taking a nice guitar and setting it up to be more weather flexible. We do get some massive humidity in these parts. June, in particular, as Summer starts. I've seen many people from Florida move up here and complain about the humid air when Summer hits. 

[BoSoxBiker]

So an update on my 3 nice acoustics. I took them in to have their repair tech and the guitar department manager to get some professional eyes on them. Sanity checks more than anything. I had done some slow, steady de-humidifying over the past 8-9 months to get my 614 back into shape, make sure I was doing no harm to the 'bird and to look at the SJ's neck. 

First, the SJ. It was confirmed that there is a twist in the neck, though small. Admittedly, I had originally thought that it was just a low cut nut and saddle that was combining to make things feel too low at times. While the saddle was indeed low, it turned out there is a little, teensy bit of a twist in the neck. The treble side up near the nut being a bit back. I had done the same basic things to the SJ as I did with the 'Bird as described in my previous post. I had quite similar results aside from the neck issue. 

Anyhow, a week later and I'm in there talking to the kind folks about it. My options were to  - 

A: Get it taken care of under warranty by going through the Gibson support system, which they were glad to assist me with.

B: Give it some additional time to see if a little bit of age and a maturing of the wood would have a positive effect.

Basically stated, my warranty was going no-place. If I held on to it for however many more months/years and it did not improve and/or I wanted it taken care of, it would be taken care of. However, as they described, I would run the risk of having a repair or replaced guitar come back that may or may not sound as nice or play as well as I what have right now. Kind of a scary thought, I must confess.

On to the Taylor 614, the sight-line and straight-edge down the frets to the bridge indicate that bridge as being a tiny bit too high, but everything else was perfectly set up and the tone had regained it's former crisp, loud and luscious glory.  He did everything but refuse to do the neck shimming I had brought it in for. It was more of a 'please don't. This plays better than anything on the wall and sounds even better. I would hate to disrupt it. It would be in specs, but there's only one direction this goes.' (paraphrasing)  And so it's home with me, too.

The 'bird is impressive shape, too, though I forgot to ask them about a ding I had given it. 

Each guitar does have some minor fret work to be done at some point, but none are causing issues yet. Overall, it was a gratifying experience. I fully expected to be corrected/schooled for doing something wrong. My wife was in ear shot for some of it, too, which never hurts when being told I'm not messing things up. LOL  (She was there for the drying too much on my first acoustic about 8-9 years ago. ) 

Most importantly and in the end, these three guitars are an absolute joy to play and was well worth the effort to get them to that extra 10%.