Balance

[mugma]

Currently my guitar is unbalanced when it's strapped on, it will instantly nosedive without my applying pressure on the neck. This makes it hard to play the high frets as i have to put so much effort in holding the guitar. I've worked out to balance the guitar i'd need to put the strap on the neck about 2 frets up.

My question is would i be able to attach a strap pin here or would the truss rod or anything like that be in the way stopping me?

Does anyone have any other recommendations?

Thanks in advance,

Dave.

[orgmorg]

You could do that, but I think you would end up hating it. Probably the easiest fix is to run a string through the hole at the end of the strap and tie it around the neck, just above the nut, like on an acoustic guitar.

Possibly lighter tuners might help?

[Doeringer]

Dave, welcome to the site! Aside from a total redesign of the guitar you only have a few options that I can think of, less if you really care what it looks like. You can try to look for tuners that are lighter(?), you can attach a metal plate of some kind to the back of the guitar (at the butt end), or maybe attach a weight to that end of the strap.... I would not put the strap button on the neck as that would nearly ruin it, even if the truss was not in the way.

Do you have pics? is this a beater guitar or a very nice looking one?

[Mickguard]

Yeah, pics will help...and you don't say if this is your build or a guitar you bought.

I had a similar issue with my first build --solved it for the most part by moving the strap button behind the neck (at the top center of the neck plate). For a temporary fix, I weighed down the back by attaching a clamp to the strap, that helped too.

The main problem with my guitar is that it had no upper horn (I'd cut that off), and that's what screwed up the balance. So if your guitar has a horn--definitely move the buttom to the end of that.

If it doesn't have a horn, you can add one one on --here's how Girl Brand did it with their bass:

You really don't want to put a strap button into the neck itself.

[mugma]

Thanks for the replies, and sorry for the lack of detail in my original post

This is my guitar:

A G2 flying V (made by Stagg apparantly). A really cheap guitar, and I wish the balance had been the only problem with it. But buying a cheap one and attempting to upgrade is certainly teaching me a lot about guitars.

You can see where the straps are fixed at the moment - one on the top near the neck on the left, and one on the very bottom left.

So having ruled out moving the strap pin to the neck, I'm interested in the other options. Replacing the tuners for lighter ones, not too sure where I'd get lighter ones from. A site I've been looking at has lots of tuners but does not give any details about their weight.

I'd like a more permenant solution than simply adding weight to the strap - fixing a metal plate on the back sounds like the best idea and a more permenant solution. Unfortunately I don't have anything like that lying around. Is there anywhere I could buy something like that from?

[mammoth guitars]

Is that a bolt on neck? Sometimes the V guitars have the strap button on one of the screws going into the neck plate. I could not tell where the upper strap button was located - it does not appear to be in the middle. A picture from the back would help.

[Southpa]

Well, its no wonder! Look at the size of that canoe paddle of a headstock! Look around for Grover mini-tuners, don't know if they come in black tho. You could remove the control plate in the back and hawg out a small pocket for pouring some molten lead in for a counter balance. I've done that on one guitar and it worked fine, just be careful. The last option would be to carve a smaller headstock and redrill the tuner holes. But you would have to do some refinishing and rebinding. Thats a last resort and I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't handy.

[mugma]

Is that a bolt on neck? Sometimes the V guitars have the strap button on one of the screws going into the neck plate. I could not tell where the upper strap button was located - it does not appear to be in the middle. A picture from the back would help.

Thanks for your reply, here you go

[tirapop]

You could also add weight to the body... as far away from the neck as possible to move the center of gravity further from the neck.

[Inisheer]

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think James Hetfield had the same problem with his ESP JH-1 model. They made another more balanced guitar and the only thing different was that the one strap button was on the inside of the wing about half way, instead of on the tip of the wing.

[Mickguard]

From what I read, the big difference between the Stagg and the Gibson is that Gibson used heavier wood, which helped to balance things.

Southpa's right about the tuners --try the Wilkinson Ez-loks, they come in black (no point in laying out a lot of money on this guitar)

And instead of pouring lead into the guitar, you can just get a heavy enough weight that dangles off the back strap pin--it'd be inconspicuous enough, and you won't make any permanent changes to the guitar.

You could go farther...I was thinking it'd be cool to find some kind of metal trim that you could fit around the entire body ...

You could plane the back and add a new back to it --glue a thick piece of maple...

Also, the Stagg telecaster I had had this baseball bat for a neck --the thing was unneccessarily huge and heavy...I shaved it down to a more manageable shape and used an oil finish instead, and it turned into a pretty decent neck (until I hacked it up in other ways, of course).

Plenty of options...the guitar cost, what, less than $100?