Montana Baked Dove, Anyone?

[BoSoxBiker]

OK, so the Dove flew home yesterday and we've been re-bonding all morning, getting the new string jangle played out tamed and playing a few songs. It's as if I had set it up myself, except the new nut is MUCH more professional looking than mine. I've even got some space to grow in each direction.

Nate, the fellow who did the work, did an outstanding job and was a pleasure to speak with on the phone. Chad went the extra mile getting this whole thing orchestrated, including talking to both Gibson and the store's owner to decide the best way to get it all done. All this without me doing any ranting and raving. They were a first class outfit from beginning to end. Yes, maybe they missed something at the start, but they made it right as rain with the least stress possible.

Time to play guitar! 🙂

Edit: A bit more on the setup and the "room to grow" I mentioned. He left me a little bit on my slots per conversation. I did the same with my Hummingbird and Maple SJ-200 a couple months ago. I took each down a tiny bit at a time over the course of several weeks, always trying to gauge the perfect combination of tone and playability with the Arthritis in my left knuckles. An exercise of chicken to some extent, but both came out wonderful. Both are higher than where I set them last year. It didn't help my string expense fund any, but it's worth it.   Thanks goodness low-tack tape is cheap. 😀 

He left me a really good radius to deal with and took enough meat off the top so that I would not be buried. If I don't screw it up, I should be able to retain that same radius. The distance to take out goes gradually up from the high-E to the low-E. He even got rid of the evidence of previous/original nut being a glue hog. Now that's caring about your work.

Edited May 7, 2021 by BoSoxBiker

[DanvillRob]

Two beautiful guitars!    CONGRATZ!

[BoSoxBiker]

On 5/7/2021 at 9:23 PM, DanvillRob said:

Two beautiful guitars!    CONGRATZ!

Thanks, DanvillRob!

Do you (or anyone) have a pref for strings on your DIF?

[DanvillRob]

19 minutes ago, BoSoxBiker said:

Thanks, DanvillRob!

Do you (or anyone) have a pref for strings on your DIF?

I have Martin MA140 80/20 Bronze "Light" 12's   

Authentic Acoustic strings on mine right now.

[BoSoxBiker]

1 hour ago, DanvillRob said:

I have Martin MA140 80/20 Bronze "Light" 12's   

Authentic Acoustic strings on mine right now.

Oh, cool! I got a set of those and the PBs in from last week's string order.  I think I have 3 options to try same make & model, but different material.

[BoSoxBiker]

Two string reviews and an update.

I did my initial nut slot filing down to about .002" - .003" of where I think I want to land. My new slower, gradual approach on nut slot filing resulted in both the Hummingbird and my Maple SJ-200 coming out wonderfully with thie Springs nut replacements. Looks like the Dove is making it 3 for 3. I am leaving the low-E string higher than normal just out of curiosity.  (It's at .024")

D 'Addario XT Lights PB - My guitar came back to me from MV with D'Addario XT Lights. They only stayed on about a week due a lot of detuning due to the nut slot filing. They lost their luster as a result of this. I did like how they felt much better than the old EXP's. I didn't get the little microscopic slivers that I used to get. The tone has improved a lot, too, but still had some of that coated string shine that I don't like too much.  I would say a positive impovement on both counts. As far as longevity and the mellowing out period, that did not happen for reasons mentioned.

Martin MA 140 Lights PB's - I decided on going with the Martin PB's instead of the 80/20's would be a more logical step from the XT PB's for comparison reasons. So, far, so good. As with most of my Martin string experiments, they got very playable in a very short order.  They do take a couple days to get to that sweet spot and the improved clarity levels, but I do not need to wait two days before really enjoying them like with some other strings. Some strings are loud and bright for the sake being loud and bright. These seem more balance. It's too soon to know the Dove's real sonic voice, but it sounds a little better with these on it.

I'll probably take these off in a week just to test the 80/20's with a recent memory of the PB's being nice sounding and not worn out. So far, though, I've got zero hesitation about using the MA140 PB's on my Dove.  

[BoSoxBiker]

On 5/16/2021 at 11:08 AM, BoSoxBiker said:

Two string reviews and an update.

I did my initial nut slot filing down to about .002" - .003" of where I think I want to land. My new slower, gradual approach on nut slot filing resulted in both the Hummingbird and my Maple SJ-200 coming out wonderfully with thie Springs nut replacements. Looks like the Dove is making it 3 for 3. I am leaving the low-E string higher than normal just out of curiosity.  (It's at .024")

D 'Addario XT Lights PB - My guitar came back to me from MV with D'Addario XT Lights. They only stayed on about a week due a lot of detuning due to the nut slot filing. They lost their luster as a result of this. I did like how they felt much better than the old EXP's. I didn't get the little microscopic slivers that I used to get. The tone has improved a lot, too, but still had some of that coated string shine that I don't like too much.  I would say a positive impovement on both counts. As far as longevity and the mellowing out period, that did not happen for reasons mentioned.

Martin MA 140 Lights PB's - I decided on going with the Martin PB's instead of the 80/20's would be a more logical step from the XT PB's for comparison reasons. So, far, so good. As with most of my Martin string experiments, they got very playable in a very short order.  They do take a couple days to get to that sweet spot and the improved clarity levels, but I do not need to wait two days before really enjoying them like with some other strings. Some strings are loud and bright for the sake being loud and bright. These seem more balance. It's too soon to know the Dove's real sonic voice, but it sounds a little better with these on it.

I'll probably take these off in a week just to test the 80/20's with a recent memory of the PB's being nice sounding and not worn out. So far, though, I've got zero hesitation about using the MA140 PB's on my Dove.  

And like a dumbarse, I wrote MA140 instead of the MA540 that they actually are. The MA140's are the 80/20's, which is next week.