We humans are great (mostly). Our amazing minds let us do incredible things. And sometimes, they try to screw with us. When that overlaps with guitars, I find it massively interesting. Check out the story of The Mystery B-String Noise…
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HPL, or High-Pressure Laminate materials are becoming more commonplace in guitar construction. Martin Guitars, in particular, have a line made partially, or almost completely, from HPLs.
As a guitar construction material, there are a lot of advantages. But, in order to go into this with your eyes open, you should be aware of one disadvantage.
Check it out…
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Correcting excessive relief or neck-bow is easy with an adjustable truss rod. What about those vintage guitars made before adjustable rods were fitted, though? Are those wonderful old instruments never to be played because there's too much bow in the neck?
No way. Find out how to use levelling and compression fretting to save these guitars.
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Getting vintage-nerdy with bar frets…
I only get a few bar fret jobs a year here. And, when I’m levelling them, I generally thank the fret gods for that fact. Bar frets are a bit different to modern frets but, if you’re playing, dealing, or repairing vintage instruments, you’ll likely come across them from time to time.
So, let’s get to know them.
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So, I want to talk about a few tips related to string ‘break angle’ — the angle the string takes over the nut or saddle. However, I reckon that it might be useful to explain what I mean and to give a little background on this area first.
Let's start with the break angle at the nut — that's the angle at which the string leaves the nut and heads for the tuner.
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In the very old days*, guitars had no truss rods at all. This wasn’t so much of a problem with gut strings but, once steel strings came along, builders realised that some sort of strengthening was required and so various things began to be inserted into guitar necks to help make them stronger.
A while back, I realised I had a couple of Martin guitars of different vintages in for neck resets. So, with the necks off, I took a photo showing the steel rods they've used over the years.
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