mistermikev

"you'll put your eye out"

looks sweet and good to see you back in here.

6 minutes ago, curtisa said:

So judging by your video, you're still seeing at least the D and G strings go sharp, and perhaps the B a hair flat after some pretty serious bar usage. That's about on par with what I experienced with all my non-locking trem-equipped guitars, claw angled or not.

I'd still be curious to see what difference it makes with the claw straight in your case. That should just be a case of putting a few turns on the treble side and taking a few off the bass. You could even do something totally heretical and angle the claw the opposite way Carl advocates and see what that does too.

I'm still struggling to see what angling the claw does to improve tuning on what appears to be individual strings. In your case you seem to be getting tuning issues on a couple of strings (which is what I would have expected for a non-locking trem). If you were having tuning problems due to overall spring vs string tension I would've thought it would affect the whole bridge, not certain strings.

The other thing that struck me last night while nodding off to sleep is that CVs angling technique actually doesn't equalise the pressure exerted on the outer fulrum points at all; it actually does the opposite. The bass strings exert the most tension and his logic is to put more spring tension on the bass-side to compensate. But this also makes the bass-side fulcrum screw see more pressure than the treble. So I've got no idea what's going on.

c'mon curtisa... me and carl verheyen are over at the water drinking and hopin' you'll join us!!! 

seriously tho... I've had this guitar decked and it didn't stay in tune as well as it does right now with the trem floating.  I know exactly what will happen if I change the tension from what it is right now because I zeroed in on this spot (after that video I fine tuned a bit more).  the low e was coming back a hair flat - so I increased spring tension and it improved.  high e was sharp... so I loosened tension.  It's not as good as a floyd (obviously) but better than any 6 screw I've ever played.  Up until now it never occurred to me that you might want something other than a squared trem claw... so forgive my fan-boyism... it has sort of been a revelation for me.

3 hours ago, curtisa said:

Here's some more food for thought. I found this quoted on another forum that was supposedly by the man himself. I've emphasised certain parts to highlight what's probably the missing information from his video, namely there's a lot more to his method than merely setting an angle in the trem claw for maintaining tuning stability:

Step 1 in his method, above actually makes no sense to me whatsoever. You can distribute the spring tension any which way you like, but as soon as you have enough float in the bridge to give you that minor 3rd pitch rise on the G, then the B and E strings cannot do anything other than rise by a whole tone and semi-tone respsectively. The implication that you will naturally end up with the claw at an angle to target specific intervals on three strings is a red herring.

Step 2 only further highlights how the strings behave when bent by equal amounts. On all trem'ed guitars the D and A strings will rise at roughly equal rates. The spring tension has no bearing on this behaviour. The fact that they rise a whole tone by the time the trem bottoms out is just a happy accident, same as the B and E strings relative to the G.

The video that is missing from the above quote can be found here. Curiously he goes through the whole springs vs strings spiel that he espouses on the video at the top of this thread, but he actually contradicts himself (2:10 - 3:10) with regards to which strings have the most tension and his subsequent justification for setting the claw angle.

Out of interest I tried setting up my Wilkinson VS100 trem with an angled claw and I honestly can't tell the difference in terms of stability. In fact, in order to get the proposed angle while maintaining the G string minor 3rd clearance, the treble-side spring is loose enough to go completely slack on the up-pull and threatens to come off the block altogether The tuning survives a few divebombs moderately OK, but then again so does the PRS with a straight claw. Returning the VS100 to a straight claw - no difference.

Maybe my guitars are set up such they don't benefit from an angled claw, but the more I think about it, experiment with it and explore the technicalities the less I'm convinced. Carl's explainations and contradicting video statements don't do much to support his theory either.

having tried this... I think your comment on step 1 is verified.  all i did was set the claw at an angle.  just tuned the g string to pitch when bending up.  that caused all strings to bend at specified intervals.  after the vid above I observed that the low e was coming back flat... so gave it more and more tension till it came back perfect.  Now it stays in tune perfect. 

going back to vs100 comment - i have a babicz w straight claw that stays in tune perfect... but I wonder if the actual springs there have differing tensions.  I can tell you that my vs100 - I had issues getting it to return perfect.  once I angled the claw... 98% there. 

the vid above: I made zero other changes.  strings are old.  nut is cut right, but tuners aren't great.  this trem never returned in tune even with graph tech saddles. 

no time like the present...

for the record: I jacked with my spring tension a little more, and screwed in my hi e string trem screw and it is improved a bit from the video.  I'd say 98% in tune after a divebomb.  that's a pretty big feat on a 6 screw trem imo.

challenge accepted!  I just broke a string on my vs100 guitar so... will have to restring that. 

I have two non locking guitars that stay in tune almost perfect.  1 is a strat with a babicz.  Now that I have seen this... I have no idea why that one works as good as it does.  it is decked... but I can seriously abuse it and it will come right back.

now the vs100 comes right back.  I'm going to go play with my guitar with 6 screw and see if I can improve it.  I'll do a quick video clip sometime this week with my results.

1 minute ago, ScottR said:

 I perhaps wasn't completely clear in explaining my thought. I did mean the reverse polarity in combination with another pickup that creates that sound. I have a couple guitars with P-90 sets and I definitely get hum canceling when playing them together, but there is not the strat like hollow sound.

SR

well, comparing p90 to strat pickup... there's a lot of differences... most p90s use bar magnets so the poles aren't magnetic... making them more like a humbucker in that sense... and singles use mangetic poles.  obviously the footprint has a lot to do with the sound to.  all that said I think a lower output p90 sounds a lot like a higher output strat style.  p90s tend to be fat sounding... but if you get a lower wind p90 they can be pretty chimey.  another difference of note is the placement.  even comparing a tele with singles combined to a strat 2 4 is a world of difference to me.  most p90 setups are closer to the tele.  At the end of the day there's only one way to find out... but g&l has been putting 3 p90-like pickups in their guitars for years.  I suspect it's going to be different and awesome.  have been thinking about a 3 p90 tele myself. 

I don't think the wind direction or polarity has an impact on sound at all but more the combining of two coils that are opposite wind and polarity to each other.  hum canceling also cancels and reinforces freq and this is why the 2 and 4 sound a bit dif. 

also, good info about the relative pitch change... I guess I just never noticed this before. 

6 minutes ago, curtisa said:

Now try setting the claw straight and adjusting spring tension so the same degree of float is achieved. Retune if necesaary. Change nothing else. Does the trem still stay in tune as well as with an angled claw given the same amount of bar usage?

 

Judging by the quick and dirty hunt I went on yesterday evening regarding Carl's video (it's quite an old story, actually. The video is over 9 years old) a lot of people seem to be getting hung up on the intervals thing behind his trem setup. Almost all trems will bend those three strings by the amounts specified given enough up-pull clearance. There is no magical adjustment you can do on the claw that changes this. There is also no adjustment you can make that will change the relative intervals of each string. If the trem is adjusted such that the G string can be bent upwards by a minor 3rd, then the B will always go up by a whole tone and the E always by a half tone. The physical properties of the strings themselves govern this behaviour, not the trem. This is also the reason why when you do a double-stop bend on the B and G strings, you get a whole-tone bend on the G while simultaneously getting a (approximately) half-tone bend on the B, despite the amount of lateral displacement on both strings being equal.

I have three guitars here with different trems - a PRS with a 6-point bridge, a Tele thing with a Wilkinson VS100 2-point trem and a pointy stick with an original Floyd Rose. The PRS has four springs, the other two have three. All are strung 10-46. Claws are straight. On each of them I can get the same intervals (minor 3rd, whole tone, semi-tone) if I raise the bar to the same degree.

Carl's video glosses over a lot of the true technicalities of his setup and omits key information. His claim at 1:53 that, 'string tension on the top needs to equal spring tension on the back, and once you do you stay perfectly in tune' is perhaps a poor choice of words on his part as it implies that floating the trem is the key thing that guarantees in-tuneness. It is further mudied when he suggests that angling the claw is responisble for the bend intervals at around 2:55, when it's easy to demonstrate that it's not. Again, I assume that's actually not what he meant and his explaination wasn't well-worded. It's what he's not telling you about how the guitar is set up that will be more important.

As I said before, I suspect that if there's any merit to the angled claw thing having any bearing on tuning stability it will be surrounding the equalisation of the forces being exerted on the fulrum screws that may be causing the trem to not return to equilibrium properly. Whether those unequal forces are enough to make a traditional 6-point trem misbehave in such a way that this is a valid method of fixing the issue, I'd have to approach with a degree of caution.

had set the claw straight before... had floated with 3 and 2 strings, had it decked with two and 3 strings low tension and high tension... nothing I did would allow the low e string to return perfect except setting the claw at an angle. 

"1:53 that, 'string tension on the top needs to equal spring tension on the back"  what I thought he meant was top (high e) vs bottom (low e) tension needs to be equal in the sense that there should be less tension on spring behind high e vs more tension on spring corresponding to low e.  seems to have worked for me.  have old strings on right now... but still it is a noticeable improvement over having it decked and high string tension.  It is returning to a point where an e chord is not noticeably out of tune wherease before... it was pretty bad.  I'm now divebombing it and returning 97% in tune.  I suspect with some nut sauce and new strings it'd be perfect.

sounds like a great plan.  as curtisa mentioned... you'll get better hum cancellation if you match the output on the single coil fairly close to the p90s.  also won't have issues with vol drop in various positions.

18 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I've mentioned a couple of times that I plan to set up two P-90s and a strat middle pickup in a typical strat configuration.....because I really want to hear how the number two and four selector positions sound.

I've got a couple of questions along those lines. I presume that to get the canceling effect, I need to insure all three pickups need to be wound in the same direction. Correct?

The typical guide lines for pickups and pots is 250K for single coils, 500k for humbuckers, and P-90s often get 500k as well, even though they are single coils. In the two tone pot strat configuration, would there be any value to using a 500K for the neck tone, and a 250K for the bridge/middle tone? Or vice versa?

SR

so this will be a mando-strat?  love this idea.

afa winding... no, you need the middle pickup to be both rev winding and rev polarity to the other two.  so you wouldn't want to buy the typical p90 pickup set as this will be 1 fwd and 1 rev.  you COULD use a strong magnet to rev polarity on one and then rev the wires... but if you haven't bought them you just need two w the sm winding.  then you get a rwrp middle pickup for the strat.  again... dif mfg use dif polarity/winding as stock so you might have to rev the polarity and wire on the middle if you don't get a match... not hard at all.  get a c clamp... and two n50 magnets.  put the magnets so they are attracting and attach them to either side of the c clamp.  screw the c clamp closed until you have just enough room to slip the single in.  pass it through.

4 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Isn't that somewhat similar to

https://youtu.be/7luUzgDwwcs

there are certainly similarities there... but not really.  the key point was the offset of the claw. 

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

I'm late to this, been out of town, but let me add to the congratulatory noises as well!

SR

Thank you scott.  you da man. 

ok, just tried this on a 2 pt trem... there is def something to it. 

A) guitar stays in tune perfect

hi e strings bends less than low e: I have no idea why but I suspect the difference in tension.

only change I made was floating my bridge and angle of the trem claw - as much angle as possible.  tuned low e to bend up whole step and now high e bends half step.  bends are not pitch accurate as you approach the middle.

If this was myth busters I would throw a big metal VERIFIED on here.

8 hours ago, curtisa said:

Some interesting claims in that video. Judging by the intellectual depth of some of the comments, a highly contentious topic too

There's a couple of perhaps misleading comments he makes in his explaination of how he sets it up though. He mentions several times that the intervals he dials in to the amount of available up-pull on the bar is key to getting the guitar to stay in tune. If you set up the bridge to give you a minor 3rd upwards bend on the G, the B and E strings will always bend by the amounts he specifies (whole-step and half-step respectively). That's just the physical properties of the strings, relative tunings, trem fulcrum point and the tensions involved. No amount of diddling with the tension of the springs (equal or unequal) will change that.

His logic for increasing spring tension on the bass side because the bass strings naturally have more tension than the treble perhaps has some merit, although I note that D'Addario's string tension guide only shows a difference of a few pounds for a 10-46 set of strings. Interestingly, the strings that exhibit the biggest pull are actually the D and A strings, which would perhaps bias tension more towards the middle of the claw, rather than the bass side. Would that much of an angle on the spring claw make that much difference, especially if the maximum string tension is perhaps one third off-centre?

Perhaps the biggest issue that pops up in my head is that irrespective of which side you bias the spring tension, the Strat bridge is still a big lump of rigid steel that is hinged at one point. As he rightly points out, spring tension needs to equal string tension, but with a rigid fulcrum and single point of leverage that will always be true no matter which way you bias the spring tension using the claw. Maybe it makes sense to equalise the tension to equalise the amount of friction on the bass and treble fulcrum screws, which in turn may help the trem find its resting point more reliably, but I suspect that isn't where the biggest problems lie in a floating trems.

There also appears to be a slight conflation of the tuning stability issues on the Strat bridge. I suspect he's actually talking about tuning issues surrounding getting the bridge to reliably return to its equilibrium point after using the bar. This shouldn't be confused with tuning issues surrounding what can happen to the strings after using the trem - binding in the nut, slipping on the tuning posts, snagging in the string trees, stretching behind the saddle etc. I wonder what other setup optimisations he had done on that 'off-the-shelf' TexMex Strat prior to being filmed that he didn't mention? - graphite dust in the nut slots, proper adjustment of the fulcrum screws, new strings stretched out fully, properly wound strings on the posts...

first off... I see a lot of credibility here based on the fact that he's not selling me anything.  I found this video by watching another pro's video on youtube.  he casually mentioned it in passing.  Had to rewind to even hear what he said... and then go hunting for info.

I think you are saying - it seems unlikely that you'd get more than one interval regardless... and that stuck out to me too.  I immediately wondered if there was an offset of the screws on top.  Was thinking - I'll have to check that out because it just doesn't seem possible - but then who knows.  He does seem to make it work in the video.

afa tension - I had no idea that it wouldn't be the low e with most and high e with least.  esp since it always seem like those are the strings that go out first.

also, I'm guessing at a minimum... he must use nut sauce and I'm guessing brand new strings.  I've notice with one of my guitars that stays perfect - it only does so for about a week or two... once the strings become old - no worky.  Obviously it doesn't work until the new strings are thoroughly stretched too.  I would bet one also has to ensure there is no binding at the saddle. 

long story short - I'm glad I shared it and even more glad for your feedback.  I've been playing and setting up guitars for 35yrs and never even considered this.  Thought I knew everything... but admittedly can't get a damn 6 screw to stay in tune even when it's decked let alone floating!

def gonna have to try it.

thank you again for the detailed response!

ok, mind blown.  I've got guitars that don't have this and stay in tune, but have never been able to get a six screw guitar to stay in tune for squat... carl just blew my mind.

he is wanking on a stock mexi strat here... and it goes back perfect.  thought y'all might appreciate.

also, he is just an amazing guitar player.  I've known about him for a while but yeah... just a monster.

3 hours ago, ZekeB said:

Thanks again, Mike.  For what its worth, here's my inlay procedure.

Started with a printout of the inlay.  I made the lines .010" on the print so it would be on the line of the cut.  I glued those on to the material and that helps with sanding and holding things together if the material is brittle like the jasper.  If you use brittle material go thicker.  On the jasper its 1..5 mm and the MOP is 1mm.  They messed up my order and the black was .5mm so I routed at different depths for those. I used two blades one fine and one course.  Fine for soft material, course for the harder stuff.  

After everything was cut I laid down some painters tape on the fret board and got another print of the template and cut out the shapes with a razor.  I taped when it was positioned and started fitting the pieces in and gluing them into place.  When set, I removed the template and scored the pieces.  I scored the wood.  Removed the material and tape and I scored again deeper so it'll come off when you get near with the router bit.  I used chalk to brighten up the lines.

 

From there I have a 3/32" and 1/32" bit that are spiral down cutting bits.  the 3/32" bit works well keeping the material out but the 1/32" is honestly still a little messy.  This is where the scoring will help a lot. 

You don't want to go deeper than the width of the bit.  If you do your more prone to breaking it.  You'll also be able to work clean if you do multiple passes.  If I can't see the edge of the side where I scored it I just get near it and leave it alone.  

When the initial route is down I use thee types of razors.  One with a sharp tip, hook, and rounded.  My rule of thump is to try not to pull.the razors.  You'll end up scoring going places you don't want to go.  If the edge is scored well i'll use the rounded one to stab and turn to break it free and you'll have a nice clean accurate edge.  For the really sharp corners I'll use the hook and very carefully stab the corners while pressing down.  

I then try my pieces, re-score if needed and they'll fit eventually.  

 

some good tips there - thank you for that.  specifically, sounds like you put tape/paper on the fretboard, and glued your inlay to it?  good trick.  I've got an upcoming inlay that will put me to the test and I've picked up a number of dif sized bits from harbor freight.  Plan on building an led base for my tile base/dremel.  hoping that will help  (can't see squat as it is!).

on that note... my recent experience with it... it is scary how easy it is to use heat to loosen glue.  I was doing wood binding, and just a little heat and voilla!  that said... and as @Prostheta has learned me... you really might want to focus on not getting to that point in the first place - unless you absolutely have to!

8 hours ago, SGFanboy42 said:

I'm not sure if it really makes a difference but I'm planning out how I'm gonna tackle my first build and want to know if there are any pros or cons of doing one way versus the other. Also what are some opinions on TiteBond Hide Glue? I'm strongly leaning toward this to set the neck.

first off... I am an SG fanboy too!  my first good guitar was an SG90 and man... my whole life has been trying to get back to that one guitar.  I'm certain nothing I build will ever measure up to what that guitar was in my mind... even that guitar itself probably wouldn't, and the chase is on.

there are pros and cons galore but it'd help to narrow it down to what specifically you are interested in comparing pros and cons of.  set vs bolt?  two way truss vs one way?  order of operations? 

there are as many dif answers as there are questions so I'll limit my info to one specific thing I've pondered on a lot lately... 

There is a very well known builder named 'terry' over at 'another forum' who says that the neck should be shaped to within a few thousands of final shape prior to applying fretboard.  He says this is the only way to guarantee a stable neck.  He also says that double action truss rods are for the birds.  I would guestimate that 95% of guitar builders don't do it this way.  I certainly don't.  Given his reputation and experience I have to assume he knows a lot more than me and perhaps we should all heed his warnings... but I also know that there have been more mfg not doing it that way for more time than I or he has been alive.  My point being that all guitar building advice is a paradox.  I think most importantly you have to find the way that works best for you... as such you probably have to TRY building one every way possible!

18 minutes ago, ZekeB said:

Thanks Mike.  Yeah its inlaid.  Left it a little proud to sand down

well the job was so good I can't even tell.  that must have been a TON of work.  this is something I need to improve on so tell me how you did it?

probably an unpopular opinion (I have a lot of those) but I like it most flat.

also... if you are a true perfectionist... after you get it to the point where it looks good... the next step is to loath it and see flaws that are invisible to almost everyone else!

4 hours ago, ZekeB said:

Cleaned the inlays a little

i literally can't tell if that's just sitting on top, or is actually inlaid.  if inlaid - you did a great job!  if not: get to work!  really looks great.

2 minutes ago, curtisa said:

Nope. That's also a perfect task for CNC. Protoype PCBs are nothing more than fancy engraving jobs, and there are several free solutions floating around for taking gerbers and generating milling code.

good to know.  that would be huge for me.  no more dangerous chems and tedious drilling of holes!

5 hours ago, curtisa said:

By a process known as tiling. The fretboard gets attached to a substrate that has some locating pins milled into it that allows it to be moved forwards and backwards by a known amount. The fretboard gets milled in two halves by first attaching the substrate into key position 1 and milling the first section of the fretboard, and then moving it forwards to key position 2 for the second half of the job.

I wrote a series of articles on the process for Projectguitar some time back which can be found in the Articles Section of the website. There are also other articles where I documented my experience with one of those cheap Chinese mini CNCs.

The other way you can employ a mini CNC is to use it to create router templates rather than directly milling something. Cutting a pickup cavity into a body is impractical on the mini CNC as it either won't fit on the bed, or the spindle won't cope with the deep cuts required. Milling a pickup cavity router template out of 1/4" MDF however is perfectly achievable. That opens its usefuness up by a significant margin, as you can now make cavity covers that precisely match a template, create a series of interlocking custom templates for a Floyd Rose trem cavity, drilling templates for multiscale bridge assembly, or mill a scratchplate out of blank pickguard material etc

ahhh, I could see how that could work.  very cool.  will have to go read through those threads. 

I could see a lot of things that could be done there, control cavity covers/templates, smaller pickguards... also I do a lot of prototype pcbs and would love to automate the drilling of holes.  I imagine you could even forgo etching and route the pcb traces... but that actually might be too much precision/work.

thank you so much for the wealth of info.  you are a real resource here.

4 hours ago, sprack said:

You can do it in the vicinity of $1.5k. I'm just in just a little over $2000 USD in the hole with a Shapeoko XXL + accessories.

CAD/CAM in Fusion360. Remote controlling it via a raspi 3+ with CNCJS, which I found much easier than LinuxCNC.

 

thank s for the info.  your workshop is impressive clean/organized!

3 hours ago, Norris said:

Congratulations

thank you Norris!