mugma

Thanks for your reply, here you go

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?

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.

Hi, you're right it doesn't really make sense. But this was a very cheap flying V guitar made by G2, who I think are the same as Stagg. I thought about scraping paint away but this seemed quite daunting and fiddly to get it off near the strings as they are held right inside the tailpiece. And it wasn't just the tailpiece that was painted but the mounting studs too and I would have had to scrape off paint around the thread. I guess you get what you pay for!

Ok... In the end i replaced the tailpiece with a shiny new chrome one. It looks a bit odd on my guitar but the sound is now marvellous and all the hum is gone. I'm thinking about painting the top of it black so it fits in with the rest of the guitar but for now i'll leave it as it is.

Hi, I've checked the wire, there's no flow with either the bridge or the tailpiece. the only place around there i get a connection is a silver exposed bit at the bottom of one of the legs of the tailpiece. I don't think it's black chrome plated, I've checked for resistance from one side of the bridge and tailpiece to the other and it comes up as 1 so there's no continuity there.

OK, I've just noticed that the bridge is irrelevent. My ground wire is connected to the tailpiece. However the same problem stands. This is totally painted and I can't see how electricity could pass through. There's a silver exposed insert at the bottom, but it doesn't go through the actual tailpiece. Any advice? Thanks Dave.

Thanks for your reply. Should the whole thing be painted black though? I thought the tips where it would be in contact with the strings should be exposed, but these are painted too. Looking at it, I can't see how it could conduct electricity at all. I'm pretty sure this is the problem - when I touch the jack the hum goes away. But not when I touch the strings. I do have a multimeter, I've checked the conductivity from the string through to the jack and there's no continuity. So I'm pretty positive that it's this.

Hi, I've just spent a stressful few days fixing up the insides of my guitar and replacing the pickups. I've got it all back together and it's all good apart (despite my shoddy soldering) from the most annoying hum! I think I've isolated this problem. Although my guitar did have a ground wire to bridge when I bought it (and still does) I don't think this is actually doing anything? The reason being my bridge and the studs seem to be painted black. Now, it was a cheapie but I wouldn't have thought any guitar maker would really be this stupid. Can anyone give me advice on how to fix this to eliminate my hum? I understand the strings need to be grounded. Would I need to get a new bridge that has not been painted, or can you offer another solution? I would apprectiate your help. Thanks, Dave. ps. forgot to mention my bridge is a tune-o-matic