Floyd Rose locking nut question?

[soul7nc]

Hi All,

Hi.,

I am writing you regarding an issue I have recently discovered on a guitar that was built for me by a pretty well known guy in the music scene for building amazing amps and guitars. I actually reached out to the owner / builder today and when I explained the issue I think I have going on his response was a bit vague and absolutely no help. I therefore emailed again with a few more questions based on some measurements and a little research i did. Once again the reply was no help and actually a bit of an insult.  I didn't reply after that as I feel like that was a "leave me alone" kind of response which is not only shocking but more of an insult to me as a repeat customer until now. If I'm correct in my diagnosis of the issue then it would be something that is totally unacceptable and the responsibility of the builder to repair under warranty and immediately due to the reason that no $1400.00 custom guitar should have this kind of work done on it by anyone that claims to be a Luthier, I mean it looks to me like an obvious screw up and then passed on as " that is how I do all of them even  mine ".  Sorry for the long post, but thanks in advance for any help or thought on what I can do to help me to move forward so i can get this fixed so I can play it.

 

Kindest Regards,

Bryant Pearce

[curtisa]

You haven't actually said what the issue is, but I'm assuming you are talking about the nut looking like it is mounted off-centre.

Defending the builder for a second, the only thing I can think of is that the nut has been deliberately skewed to the treble side of the neck, so that the distance from the outer edge of the high-E string to the edge of the treble-side of the fretboard is the same as the distance from the outer edge of the low-E string to the bass-side of the fretboard. That's actually the correct way of positioning the two outer slots on a nut relative to the fretboard edges for good playability. It may look a little more unusual on a locking nut if the slots are all factory-machined with equidistant spacings from each other and to the edges of the nut, and the builder has compensated for this behaviour by shifting the nut to one side.

You can check this yourself by measuring with the guitar strung up. Take a ruler and measure as accurately as you can the distance from the outer-edges of the two E-strings to the edge of the fretboard right at the nut. The distances should be equal. NB, this is not the distance from the centre of the string (ie, the 'valley' of the nut slot) to the edge of the fretboard.

If, however the two measured distances are not equal, then yes, I'd say the nut has been poorly installed and you should be entitled to a warranty claim (assuming you were offered a warranty by the builder, or the consumer laws in your country cover you with the equivalent purchase protection by default) to repair, replace or refund.