Ibanez archtop with 0.010 Thomastik strings and rosewood bridge intonation issues

[pingu]

1336030[/URL]]Would a T-O-M Saddle fix this? Would like to keep the 0.10 gauge
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I'll go to the luthier tomorow and ask about all this. The nut, the wooden bridge and the pickguard height which is wrong because of the new pickguard bracket.

Also, and this is kinda huge red flag for me...the guitar has a lot of scratches in the finish near the bridge from him trying to sand it to the body. He didnt even brought that up in the conversation. He just let me walk out of his studio in the hopes that I wouldnt see that...


Had the guitar for 2 weeks before taking it to him for 2 times now

the scratches were completely avoidable ….
I would now walk away if I were you

He doesn’t have the basic knowledge
and skills to do this work ….

[Keru]

Even the holes where the knobs sit have tiny scratches on it (switched to CTS pots) and are at different heights.

I have to talk to him and get this off my chest.

The bridge pickup has faulty wiring installed (breaks up sometimes and the volume is lower, but maybe that's from the height of the pickup being bad because of the new bracket)

All the other things I need done. I was thinking about relying on his warranty and not having to pay a new guy to do this. But yes...risky...

I have hopes that a good talk with him will make things go smoothly and then, most likely, I'll never go there again. I was taking my telecaster there for years now and never had any problem, but a tele is much simpler to work with imo. Nowadays he has tons of work and is slacking because of that.

[Keru]

Found out my last 4 strings (Wounded ones) have significant less output than the first 2 strings.

I can't adjust the height of the floating pickup. Would adjusting the pole pieces inside the pickup fix the issue?

[garybaldy]

i believe the string pressure should
vector down through
the bridge screws to the top

so yes the bridge could be slightly leaning towards the tailpiece

i also think perpendicular to the top is fine ….

but definitely not leaning towards the neck like the OP’s one does

Attachment 111441

uggh
for myself I would aim to bisect the break angle

deffo worth trying reversing the bridge base (but keep the saddle
orientation as is of course)

You can see that the underside of the base has been sanded on an angle causing the whole bridge to lean towards the pickups.

[sgosnell]

You can see that the underside of the base has been sanded on an angle causing the whole bridge to lean towards the pickups.

Rotate the base 180 degrees.

[pingu]

1337932[/URL]]Rotate the base 180 degrees.

but not the saddle ….

[garybaldy]

Rotate the base 180 degrees.

Any chance that it could then be leaning the other way too much?

[sgosnell]

The top is shaped so that it slopes down as it nears the tailpiece, so the bridge should tilt less. It may not be completely straight up, but a little bit of lean that way actually puts the downward pressure more perpendicular to the top. I think the bridge has been installed backwards by someone at some time. But as Pingu said, reverse the saddle, so that it stays oriented as it is now. Or maybe not, I can't see the top of the saddle. If it's a compensated saddle, it makes more of a difference. If it's a straight saddle, all that matters is matching the string diameters.

[Keru]

The top is shaped so that it slopes down as it nears the tailpiece, so the bridge should tilt less. It may not be completely straight up, but a little bit of lean that way actually puts the downward pressure more perpendicular to the top. I think the bridge has been installed backwards by someone at some time. But as Pingu said, reverse the saddle, so that it stays oriented as it is now. Or maybe not, I can't see the top of the saddle. If it's a compensated saddle, it makes more of a difference. If it's a straight saddle, all that matters is matching the string diameters.

It's a compensated saddle and it's in the correct position.

Do you know if you can adjust pole pieces on a Magic Touch mini humbucker?

[sgosnell]

So you will need to change the saddle when you rotate the base. It fits either way.

I know nothing about Magic Touch mini humbuckers. But from photos, I see no polepieces, so I don't see a way to adjust them, nor even if they exist. They might use rails instead of individual polepieces.

[Keru]

So you will need to change the saddle when you rotate the base. It fits either way.

I know nothing about Magic Touch mini humbuckers. But from photos, I see no polepieces, so I don't see a way to adjust them, nor even if they exist. They might use rails instead of individual polepieces.

I'm really trying to keep the 0.10 string gauge, but I think I'm on the end of the road here. My whole style of playing comes from 0.9's but maybe I'll develop something new when learning to play 0.11's?

The unbalanced outputs is just too obvious. The next step would be to buy a new pickup...damn

[sgosnell]

,009 strings on an archtop isn't likely to sound good, and .010 strings are much lighter than I can stand, but I'm not you. I think you've already been given about all the advice we can think of, so good luck in your journey.

[oldane]

the scratches were completely avoidable ….
I would now walk away if I were you

He doesn’t have the basic knowledge
and skills to do this work ….

Agree completely. The luthier (or whatever he is) seems to have messed up just about everything he has touched - bridge, scratches on the guitar body, pickup height, nut slot height.