Build numero three!

[Simon Barden]

You should be able to burnish the copper foil nice and flat and almost eliminate all the ridges in the foil. I normally use the rounded end of a metal scalpel, but anything hard with a rounded edge will do. Just press down and rub from side to side.

[Simon Barden]

And +1 for string trees. Unless the nut slot bottoms are a long way from the headstock face, the break angle on the B and E strings is almost always too shallow for enough downward pull to keep the strings in place. The G string is often marginal, and I wait and see how it plays before fitting a second string tree. On standard tuners, putting enough turns on so the strings come off the bottom of the tuner post helps. Likewise, use staggered height locking tuners so that the G, B and E strings leave the posts as low as possible.

Even though you’ll pretty much always need to fit one string tree, the less it has to pull the string down by, the less friction generated by the string moving beneath it when bending strings or using the trem.

[McCreed]

I have several strat/tele builds from my "early days" that have two string trees, but ones I've done in the past 4 years or so, I've been able to get away with just the B/E one (or none on my 2020 strat). I attribute this to just getting better at doing nut work.

I have contemplated redoing all the nuts on my guitars with two trees, but I've yet to get up the motivation to do it.
Plus it would involve plugging the old screw hole (which could lead me to refinishing the headstock because I'm a bit of a nut that way) and the reality is there are some guitars that you just need a retainer on the G no matter what. I find that confounding, but it is just the way it goes sometimes.

I have seen these online but never tried one: THREE STRING TREE
Reverend Guitars (HERE) do a fancier one that I like the look of better, but they're 14 US bucks each plus postage.

This works fine with no trees:


This is just a shameless exhibition of said guitar!

[Groovyman32]

I’ve just been reading bits of a book on the mechanics of acoustic guitars. It says that wound strings can become slightly unwound, and that if you loosen one off and give the windings at the ball end a couple of turns in the direction of the windings (normally anti-clockwise) then this can close up the windings, make them more regular and remove some unwanted resonances. Worth a try, though it’s a bit harder an a trem bridge than on an acoustic bridge!

Alternatively you can try replacing the string, as you do occasionally get a duff string that doesn’t play the same way all along its length.

Thanks Simon, my G string is unwound. Are you suggesting the resonance might be coming from the other wound strings?

I am using staggered tuners for exactly this reason. But it has settled down over the last couple of days. I might live with it for a while.

[Groovyman32]

This is just a shameless exhibition of said guitar!

Nice Mc - I like the unconventional scratch plate and the chrome knobs!

I like the look of the triple tree - Amazon seem to sell them too.

[Simon Barden]

G string. No, I was originally in wound 3rd mode, recognised this after posting, but as I didn’t specifically mention a G string, I left it up as-is as it’s still a useful snippet of information.

Whilst it’s probably to do with the nut slot or the break angle, I’d check that the saddle is sitting parallel to the base plate and that both of the saddle height screws are touching the baseplate reasonably firmly. It’s very easy to have the saddle sitting at an angle, and with just one of the screws holding the saddle up and the other loose and some way from the base plate, or lightly touching it and able to vibrate against it at certain frequencies. It’s a fine balancing act, as when you tighten up one screw, you are likely to then raise the other screw up a bit. I get the saddles sitting flat first and with the long part of the hex key in the screw, just very lightly rotate the shaft of the hex key with my fingertips (to use minimum leverage) until I can feel some resistance, then stop.

[McCreed]

Excellent point about loose saddle height screws Simon.

A couple of tricks for those saddle screws that habitually loosen up are:

1) Once the string action has been finally set, a small dab of clear nail polish on the threads right where the screw enters the saddle (and allowed to dry). If they need readjusting in the future, the nail polish will just chip off as soon as the screw is turned. Then re-apply when the new height is set.

Pro Tip: DO NOT use super glue for this! (learnt that the hard way!)

2) If they are block saddles, the screw can be fully extracted, then a narrow strip of teflon tape (like plumbers use) wrapped around the threads. The screw can still be adjusted up and down, but the tape adds enough friction to keep it from moving on its own from vibrations.

[Groovyman32]

Excellent ideas - I’ve had problems even getting the saddles to sit straight. It seems when I turn one legs it skews the saddle off to one side. I have to lift the string a push it back.

But the resonance could be coming from a loose screw. I’ll investigate further - thanks both.


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