Es-335 Bridge positioning

[umatic]

This is not an unusual state of affairs on new Gibsons with an ABR-1, and it can relate to the neck to body alignment, slight variations in the pickup mounting, etc. Your tech did a reasonable job of centering the strings over the bridge pickup, but there's more to it than that and I can't see other factors I'd take into consideration. I usually try to find the best compromise between the way the strings ay across the fingerboard, and their alignment over the two pickups. In general, that means having them slightly wide of center on the bridge pickup, and that looks like what he did.

 

I have no idea why this couldn't be done right in production, but my guess is the time factor pressing on the builder(s) causes them to say "good enough...Next!". I have an '06 '59 RI that I bought from MF's, it had been their website photo guitar fro the '59 RI VOS. The strings were aligned exactly as yours, only it was worse. The bridge studs were misaligned and the bridge was tipping so far forward it couldn't be intonated. I had to have a local luthier plug the holes & redrill them. The nut was so badly cut I had to remove it and make a new one. I put all new saddles in the bridge and cut them much as your tech did yours. It now plays and sounds great, but I must say it was very upsetting to say the least to have to do this in order to get the thing playable. All this and a $5k+ price point? I think not!

 

Sure that seems to be the consensus: "good enough...Next!" As I mentioned at the start of this thread, my 335 was an eBay purchase. But really, as long as it's an authentic Gibson, I should be able to buy it from anywhere and be secure in it's build quality, and not have to worry about whether I'm covered by the frickin' warranty or not! It seems that others have had worse problems than me, but I'm confident my guitar can, in the end, get properly set up. Interesting to hear that the Memphis made instruments have a reputation. Mine is indeed a Memphis 335. Yes it was a good price on eBay but it was still equivalent to about $2300. Maybe the Gibson guys who check out this thread should take the feedback on board and find out what's going down on their production lines!!!

[j45nick]

Sure that seems to be the consensus: "good enough...Next!" As I mentioned at the start of this thread, my 335 was an eBay purchase. But really, as long as it's an authentic Gibson, I should be able to buy it from anywhere and be secure in it's build quality, and not have to worry about whether I'm covered by the frickin' warranty or not! It seems that others have had worse problems than me, but I'm confident my guitar can, in the end, get properly set up. Interesting to hear that the Memphis made instruments have a reputation. Mine is indeed a Memphis 335. Yes it was a good price on eBay but it was still equivalent to about $2300. Maybe the Gibson guys who check out this thread should take the feedback on board and find out what's going down on their production lines!!!

FYI, the Nashville ES 335s typically sell for about $4.8K new with warranty from a Gibson dealer (list price, which no one charges, is about $6.8k). I got mine second-hand (six months old) for about $3.75K on eBay, as I recall, and it was a beautifully-done instrument. The fingerboard is as straight-grained and black as ebony, which goes well with the cherry finish. Someone cared enough to choose the colors very nicely. I'm glad I spent the extra money for a Nashville, which I did with the encouragement of Charlie Gelber of New York, who is my ES 335 mentor.

 

I should point out that although mine is a '59 Historic, Gibson says that no cherry ES 335s were actually built in 1959. I guess that makes it a bit of a unicorn.

[umatic]

Good to know, and good for you on getting a perfect instrument! Clearly in Gibson world another $1000 buys a half-way decent factory set up. This is actually my first Gibson - I've hitherto been a confirmed Tele man. No regrets tone-wise btw. Is the diff between the Nashville and Memphis instruments a bit like that between the US and Mexican Fender's? I assumed the Memphis Custom Shop tag meant something. Like sok66 earlier who had to get his luthier to re-drill and mount the bridge on a $5k instrument - not good at all....

[endpin]

The nut and bridge saddle notches need to be slightly ramped so the the string exits at the high point and does not make any other contact like this.

[j45nick]

The nut and bridge saddle notches need to be slightly ramped so the the string exits at the high point and does not make any other contact like this.

Excellent point! You really need a single bearing point for this to work properly.

[bleggoe]

Problems described by my previous posts in this thread have been nicely sorted by an excellent tech in the UK. He basically filed the nut (and a few frets as well). When there's time I suspect a new nut (bone?) could also be a consideration?

[martinh]

A few things on this subject that I have seen over the years:

 

[1] My understanding is that one reason for the replacement of the ABR1 with the Nashville was that the ABR1 did not always provide sufficient intonation adjustment for all action heights and string gauges, hence the wider range of adjustment on the Nashville

 

[2] My 73 Les Paul has always had two of the saddles turned backwards. I've seen so many like this that I used to think that was the way they were supposed to be set up.

 

[3] I know of two usual causes for a dead open string. The most frequent is that the nut slot does not angle down from the neck side towards the headstock side. Consequently, the pivot point of the string is not at the neck-side edge of the nut, but further back in the slot. The edges of the slot then act almost like a sitar bridge, restricting the side-to side motion of the string. The second is that the slot is cut too low, although this produces an effect more like classic fret buzz. I have also seen some problem when the nut is at the correct depth above the first fret, but the slot has to be cut too deep to get there, e.g. the entire string disappears into the slot. I was taught that no more than half of a bass string should be covered by the nut, with a little bit more for the treble strings.