OK. I fibbed. This is not about the central throbbing system of a vertebrae. It is about the sodding bridge humbucker in my Falcon copy Vintage VSA 850. This is the guitar in question:



A few of you might remember it from a previous post. Vintage build budget guitars imitating the look, feel and sound of legendary instruments. The head and ears behind this project (amongst other things, for he is a busy chappie) is Trevor Wilkinson - designer, advisor, friend of the great guitar makers, and himself easily one of the most popular heads of guitar making royalty. Many of you will have heard his brand name before.

Forum member Nikininja once famously threw a Vintage LP "Greenie" out onto his lawn, then proceeded to set it alight- I don't think we need to ask him what he thought of its build quality or playability or even sound (as far as I know he kept the pickups though.... ) - I however have been mightily impressed with that honey coloured goddess hanging on my wall. It's not a guitar I regularly use, because it is quite heavy; none the less I value her depth of tone and nearly endless "sustaaaayyyyyn". Good stuff for the money.

But there was always one issue in particular that I never figured out. The bridge HB wouldn't let itself be lowered beyond a certain point, making it usually too loud when switched to bridge position. Slightly awkward. So after owning the guitar for something like three years, I recently set to work.

The pickup config consists of a metal PU-ring-cover, which lies on top of a transparent PU holding ring. The pic below shows how it's all stacked together.
The arrow indicates what I detected to be the issue: One of the metal mounting "ears" of the PU was bumping into a ledge of wood indicated in the pic follwing this one. Someone in China had not had his coffee (or tea I guess) that morning, it seems:



Li'l' ledge:





There's also another big bad ledge on the broad side of the HB: But after measuring the width of the PU and the rout I decided this was not causing the issue.






So after extracting the PU and having a good look, I set to work with my micro sander. These tools are truly amazing.



And this was the first step done. Don't worry, I smoothed it out with finer sandpaper after this shot.



Job done! ....or so I thought. After putting it all back together again, I tried adjusting the PU height and again had no luck. Something was seriously causing it to not go below a certain point. So again I took it all apart, this time disassembling the entire PU stack. And there we had our traitor.



You probably can't see it well in this pic, but under the watchful eye of my trusty windy-uppy LED torch ("oh yeahh, I'm like soooo green and like totally saving the planet and that") I could get a better shot: Somebody else had not had their coffee (or tea, respectively) for an entire week. It would appear, as Spock would say, that when routing or CNC-ing or casting the PU holder, someone had done a really rotten job and carved a nice little ledge around nearly the entire PU mounting ring. So when you wanted to lower the PU beyond a certain point, its edges would get stuck on these evil and spiteful things sticking their heads out. Here we have the two conflicting parties battling it out hard:



I had a feeling I should again have to rely on my trusty micro tool to rid me of this nuisance.

Which I did.



Look at the state of the rout for the mounting / height adjustment screws! They are on two levels and parallely adrift! That's what happens when you drill from the top, then flip the mounting ring over to drill from the bottom, while your mates from the factory next door are showing you the lovely iPads they've been building all week. Or something like that. Anyway - we must get rid of it.



Yeah well here are some random shots trying to illuminate the issue. Enjoy.







So after some lighter sanding and polishing it looked quite ready to be put together once more.



And there we have it! All nicely done up and back in place. Only this time...



I can go wayyyyyyy low!





Well I hope you enjoy and perhaps can take something from it for your own purposes. Contrary to popular practice these pics are all very happy to travel to all sorts of places in the world for educational purposes, so share if you like and be happy. Eat 'yer daily veg an' that. Yeah.

Nutter out

NIce work Nutter.....
ALthough I bet you wish you had pulled the mounting ring apart before going at the wood with the sander first.........
I really like how you did it all with the strings still on too....



Oh and I really like the word 'parallely'......................

_________________
speak slowly I'm a drummer too!!

And I proudly lack a stick or a kazoo up my arse...........

Quality work throughout, sir.

HAND SALUTE!



Arjay

_________________
"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Cheers lads - I'm humbled and glad you liked it

And pappawookee: Nah, I don't regret it even a bit. I only took about 1.5 mil off, ain't gonna hurt no-one

And parallely is a cousin of probabelly... heehee...

So all that remains to be told is when you and Ceri are opening a shop together.

_________________
'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

They certainly have the chops for it!

Rebelsoul wants me to start a Fender amp museum and restoration center with him -- mebbe the four of us should join forces.



Arjay

_________________
"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

You can buy one like everybody else.

And cool thread, I enjoyed it.

Nutter-
Great post, sir. This is what I come to the Forum to see--intelligent, gently humourous, informative posts. You did some beautiful work, and I love the documentation (pics, especially)...plus you added to the Forum Cryptolexicon with the use of "parallelly"...

Excellent!

_________________
Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Nathan-
Remove this post and the previous post from this thread. They have nothing to do with the subject at hand. You're being rude, inconsiderate and ridiculous, even after many of us (including me) defended you and your return.

Don't apologize, don't cry, just delete your posts and go away. They miss you at the Gibson Forum.

_________________
Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Well that would mean I knew what I am doing, and most of the time I don't, so that would leave poor Ceri with a very sad apprentice. I'm good at holding stuff, and making tea, and sitting down though. But not much more.

And Mr Retroverbial: Yeah that would be a laugh, wouldn't it? Transatlantic Gear Co. ...

Cheers for your flattery guys. I hardly deserve it. You put a smile on my face there!

And thanks Mssrs Ray_Tard and Screamin', I am really glad you enjoyed my little dabbling session! It is no surprise to me that Mr Armadillo joined because of build threads. I did exactly the same thing.

Cheers lads -

Nutter

I didn't have time to comment on this thread earlier, I had a sudden urge to go the beach Nice one Nutter

I just wish I had the time and tools to do a bit more modding and building than I do...

Steadier hands would be better, too. Some days I'm like Gene Wilder's gunfighter character in "Blazing Saddles"..."...Yeah, but this is my shooting hand!"

...although the shaky hand helps for my vibrato!

_________________
Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

[quote="Retroverbial"]Quality work throughout, sir.

HAND SALUTE!

+1

cheers

_________________
It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting - paulo coelho

Cheeers Snowy! Did ya go to the beach? hopefully not to throw stones... I know from experience that hurts. And I can't believe my repair attempts were [i]that[i] bad!



Nutter