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The autotuners weren't manufactured by Gibson, rather by Tronical, a European company that now seems to be out of business. I bought a set of their tuners for my Epi ES175, and they tuned fine, but were fragile, under-engineered, and failed internally, the gears stripped. The first ones were replaced at no charge, via overnight shipping from Europe to me. The next failures, I didn't even bother, just replaced the manual tuners and went on with life. I'm not entirely certain what the relationship between Gibson and Tronical was, but there were lawsuits involved.
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03-14-2020 03:45 PM
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995 here is how I keep my floating bridge in place. Before I take the old strings off I use painters tape to secure the bridge where it is at. I am not familure with your type of stop tail peace but with mine I will put all of the strins into it and hold them in with Painters tape once its strung up I take the tape off. I also put some small felt dots on the under side of the tail stop so if it where to ever hit the top it wont scratch the body. And will say it looks like you got the saddel realy close to where it should go.
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Easier, and less likely to damage finish: change strings one at a time! The bridge never moves and no tape goop gets on the guitar top.
Originally Posted by JaxJaxon
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Blue painter's tape leaves no goop and will not damage the finish, whatever it is. I use a strip of it to mark the bridge, then remove the strings and bridge and clean the fretboard, then restring with the bridge exactly where it was. I remove the tape when the strings are taut enough to hold the bridge in place, or after it's at pitch, no real difference. I do this at just about every string change, because I don't want gunk building up on the fretboard.
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That looks fairly appropriate for an electric guitar's intonation, assuming an unwound G-string. Originally Posted by 995
Test your intonation by comparing the open string with the same string, 12th-fret octave, using a good tuner. If the octave is flat, move the saddle towards the neck. If the octave is sharp, move the saddle away from the neck.
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995, welcome to the fraternity of arch top guitar players! As has been pointed out of thread, most of us went through this the first time we tried to change guitar strings. I did exactly the same thing and, to top it off, when I reinstalled the bridge I put the base on backwards and the top in the correct orientation, so it sat at a funny angle. There is always a learning curve.
Generally speaking the usual advice is to change one string at a time. That way the bridge does not move. If you are going to take all of the strings off, using a little blue tape to mark where the bridge was sitting before you take the strings off can save you some frustration later. Also note which way the bridge is facing so that the bass and treble side remain in their correct orientation.
A couple of terminology points: the piece where the ball end of the string anchors is called the tailpiece. It is not involved in intonation in any way, it only holds the ends of the strings. Taking off the cover will do nothing useful for you. The bridge on your guitar has several pieces: the bridge base, which sits on the top of the guitar, two posts with thumbwheels that adjust the height of the bridge top, the bridge top which holds the six saddles, in your case since you have a Tune-o-Matic style bridge. Some bridge tops are a single piece of wood which acts as the saddle but is not adjustable for individual string length. The bridge can be angled for the majority of setting the intonation and then the screws holding the saddle pieces can be fine-tuned. Depending on the string gauges, the bridge may need to be a little farther forward or a little farther backwards, one side might be further forwards or backwards compared to the other, etc. As strings age it seems that their intonation also changes and the bridge needs to be moved a little bit over the lifespan of the strings to maintain intonation correctly. And of course if you raise or lower the action you will need to readjust the intonation.
A rule of thumb is that the bridge should be centered along the line between the two mid-points of the F holes. That can be pretty much done by eyeball. It's very clear in your first photo that the bridge is a long way behind that line. I also see that there is a shadow indicating where the bridge had been, which you can use as a guide.
Seeing how this is done is so much easier than trying to write instructions for it. There are a number of videos on YouTube to explain this process. Once you see it, you'll understand that it's very simple and straightforward, just a little difficult to describe. A caveat here is that I have not actually watch these videos, I just searched for them.
The Dave's World videos are... interesting viewing. And at least in the image shown for the video, the bridge top is on in the wrong direction. And watching all the way through the video, that's how it ended up. Maybe since he was into setting it up with open D tuning it would be less noticeable than if it was in standard tuning. Sigh, I hate when I see stuff like that on YouTube. But other than that, the basic process was there.
Deacon Mark's suggestion of having a tech walk you through the process with your own guitar has a lot of merit to it. Mark is a fine guitar tech professional in his own right, particularly arch top guitars. Any good tech in your area should have the essential knowledge to do this.Last edited by Cunamara; 03-22-2020 at 11:23 PM.
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Hmm... OK, I'm just paranoid about putting anything sticky onto the finish. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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Regular masking tape, or especially gaffer's tape (sometimes called duct tape or duck tape, but really neither) can be problematic, but the blue painter's tape leaves nothing, IME, unless left for days or weeks. For a few minutes, it leaves a completely clean surface.
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