Any guitar players on TW?

Welcome to the thread...share away

 

bet
The latest! Started playing the bass, really like having the perspective to learn more genres ! Insisted on the 5 string, sorry to any old heads

 

Here's one I picked up at Christmas time - a '66 Gibson SJ200 but hadn't had time to touch it until this week with a fret dressing and polishing, correct truss rod adjustment and setting the intonation on the so weird adjustable bridge and saddle getup they used back then, along with some String Joy 80/20 Brights.

 

love me some String Joys. that Gibson ain't bad looking either...

 

NGD!
Sadly, had to sell the G&L, she and I just couldnt gel.
So I picked this up new, and I am in absolute love! The action is a mile high, and the frets are a little gritty, several are a touch high. Beyond that, and even with those shortcomings I absolutely am more enamored with it every time I pick it up! Hunting a good fret guy now..

 

It's surprisingly easy to learn how to level and polish your own frets, use a good tuner app (like Petersen) which will read in cents plus or minus to help you set up your bridge/saddle situation, and just as important, to properly adjust the truss rod for optimal neck relief, but these are all things a good setup guy/gal can do for you fairly reasonably, y'know, hopefully.

 

it is a true Neck-Thru, and the neck relief appears dead flat when "eyeballing". If it were just the frets to be polished or leveled, I would likely attempt myself. But the nut is really tall, and the strings are already filed down flush to the top of the nut. I would prefer it to be reset and setup by a qualified tech with the correct tools on hand. I will be tooling up, so to speak to perform these myself for periodic maintenance. But I'd like a "Pro" to set the initial starting point. The acoustic resonance of this guitar it outstanding! Now I want a Gibson to compare. If I had paid $3-4K and got what I did, I would have been quite agitated. For what I did pay, I will gladly pay the upcharge for a good tweaking to optimal and still keep a pickin and a grinnin!

 

You can either use a straightedge or just use your low E string to measure neck relief far more accurately than just eyeballing it. To use your string, making sure they're all tuned to pitch, put a capo on top of the first fret, directly on top of the fret and not where you'd normally put it just behind the fret, then hold that string down at the 14th fret and check the relief at the 6th/7th fret where you should have a very slight gap - about .005 in. which is about two thicknesses of typing paper. You can also use an automotive feeler gauge or the Stew-Mac digital string height gauge to check that.

As far as the nut is concerned, where the strings are in relation to the top of the nut is not what's important. What is important is the actual string height of each string at the first fret which can be somewhat variable depending on how you want your guitar to be set up, but generally somewhat in the vicinity of .008 on the low end to close to .020 on the high end, all of which is easily measured with that Stew-Mac tool, but there is an order to doing all of this where you take all the strings off and set the neck relief to zero with the truss rod, then check for any high frets and address those and checking for any abnormal fret wear like divots in high traffic areas and determine if you need a fret leveling, and if so, is there enough height left to accomplish that safely or if you need a re-fret. Then you deal with nut slotting and finally re-setting relief and then saddle height for optimal action and saddle placement for optimal intonation. And of course there is some back and forth as string height will affect where the optimal saddle placement/string length as well.

 

Agreed with all you have said here. I only mentioned the depth of the strings in the nut to express that there had been significant filing from the factory to seat them already. The height the strings are now at, would suggest that the OAH of the nut needs reduced, rather than filing the slots deeper. There will be a number of subsequent adjustments needed to optimize the action lowering. Pup height as well as bridge/saddle. If the strings are lowered, they will likely touch the Bridge Pup. Its kind of like setting up a transit, or leveling a pool table. Every adjustment shifts the other adjustments slightly. haha hence my search for a professional. but thanks for the info nonetheless!

 

damn... was it set up for slide in it's previous life?

 

update: had to change the PG. Black looks much better.

 

I like to coloring of the bass

 

Picked up a Enya carbon fiber guitar X3 pro mini auditorium size. Amazpend had a 20% off coupon and I am amazed... Intonation great, sounds great plays great too.... Tuned it when I got it and it has stayed locked in. I'm used to 11 gauge strings so the stock 12s are a bit much for bending but it's been near perfect.. it doesn't have a wood sound but it still is great. Super chimey and sustain for days.. I always get stuff from Amazon for the returns in case I get a dud....
It has effects which I am surprised I actually like.. reverb chorus delay and a autowah thing....
My fingers hurt.

 

Anyone have experience with Reverb for thinning out the herd? Thoughts/recommendations/complaints/praise??

 

I've never sold on Reverb, just bought. Have a friend whos done a lot of wheeling and dealing on there, but he doesn't seem to touch it anymore (as a seller) after they changed up their fee system to take a significant amount. Its an awesome place to buy/sell, no doubt. You just have to adjust your sale price to accommodate losing a small amount on each sale, so that makes it harder to stay competitive and move it fast if you're not super motivated to list low/sell fast. It can still be done though. I prefer to buy/sell local, but truth be told, sometimes that means waiting a long time for the right buyer/seller.

 

Oh wow thanks . As many guitarists I have collected probably 20 guitars and it's time to t get rid of some... I'd be happy just to not "give them away" and have them go to good homes... I have a lot of other audio stuff and such too... I'll try to sell one and go from there I guess...

 

I think it also just depends on the value of the guitar too. I'm sure a while back, it wasn't really a factor, because Reverb didn't take any of the cut really. Obviously taking a high-end guitar into somewhere like Guitar Center to sell to them is just straight up robbery. They're going to give you like 50% of what its worth, if that. If you have some better shops near you, sometimes that process is a little easier. For example, I've got a handful of shops near me, and most of them will give you 50-60%, because they're going to just turn around and flip it for profit. Then I have another shop or two, which are more high-end type places; they'll let you basically pay them a "storage" type fee to keep it in their store, listed at YOUR asking price, and if it sells, you get the money. Obviously this goes both ways. People who have realistic or lower prices can move the guitar quick and not rack up enough fee money to matter. People who list high and can't move the guitar let it sit in store for months and are paying the store to keep it "listed" there. Its definitely nice to have those stores around, because you can find good deals, have a little less hassle when selling (not having to deal with people), and the people running those stores are generally good people.

I will say, if you list on Reverb, go ahead and calculate a realistic (insured) shipping price to get it nearly anywhere in the US and include that in your sale price. Idk why it is, but "free shipping" is just a huge turn-on for lots of people. For ex:
- $1,150 + $100 shipping = $1,250 total price
or
- $1,249.99 free shipping = $1,249.99 total price

The penny isn't a deal breaker, but for some reason, it seems like the better deal because of the free shipping.

 

Good tip.... Of the stuff I'm selling it's mostly middle of the road stuff MIM Strat, an Orangewood Torrified and a couple high end Harley Benton's.... except the Larivee.l which is a late 90s dread with rosewood back and sides pretty sure it's on par with Martin and Taylor. quality... Put it up for sale and see how it goes. I thought about the Craigslist Marketplace thing but what a pain that can be with flakes and tire kickers....

 

Agreed with @Off Topic Guy. I buy there only... I can usually offload any gear locally, it is a pain sometimes, but there are no fees, and no shipping or potential damage in transit. Reverb is becoming known for over inflating the market prices because of asking prices being above average a lot of times. Review the sales history of sold items to get a more reasonable idea of the actual prices that your items are selling at presently. its a pretty handy tool.

 

Been slowly spending a little more time with music since I got my new rock bottom price MacBook Pro on Black Friday. It felt good to have all my instruments work with software that works again. Sold / got rid of the red guitar to a kid / young guy I know for making room for the new amber colored guitar I found for an ok price on OfferUp.