Mine aren't cranked down tight, but they are pretty low on both my Gibsons. I was told (or read or heard) that if you have to jack the stop bar up really high to clear the bridge, the guitar has a shallow neck angle.
top wrap will remove the gold plating pretty quickly. just raise the tail piece a little bit, it will NOT kill sustain by doing that one bit! 52 years not top wrapped
oh damn, now my GAS for an LP is back. It absolutely has to be a white one. And left hand white ones for sensible money are as rare as rocking horse poop. Still - my house is on the market, auction in 3 weeks, if it goes for what i'm hoping it'll mean we can buy a big house in the country, be mortgage-free, and hopefully have some left over for assuaging my GAS.... fingers crossed!!
I have 3 Les Pauls and an SG, all Gibsons. After reading on the internet about the horrible things that would happen if the strings didn’t clear the back of the bridge, I wasted way too much time top-wrapping, messing with the height of the stop bar, experimenting with jamb nuts, etc. Then, a few months ago, I decided to see if I could actually hear or feel any difference if I just decked the stop bar and didn’t worry about whether any of the strings touched the back of the bridge. Surprisingly, but not surprisingly, I could not. One less thing to keep me up at night; YMMV.
Not necessarily. The ABRs were/are narrower, so I think it was common so see full clearance on the older, highly sought-after LPs. The Nashville bridge is wider, allowing for more saddle travel, which means that strings that would have cleared an ABR may touch the bridge on a Nashville-equipped guitar with the same neck angle.
I top wrap and deck the stop bar on my Les Paul also. Gives the strings a slinkier feel. Minor nuance, but noticeable. Doesn’t work on all of them though.
About 20 bucks for a high quality tail piece if a person decides to put their guitar back stock to sell, that is what I did.
The SG actually runs TonePros... pre-slotted, but they are barely enough to hold the strings. If I played like I did when I was 15, I'd need deeper slots or I'd be knocking the bass strings off of the saddles.
It all depends on the angle of the neck. Gibson's can vary quite a lot and the bridge/stop bar set up will differ on different guitars. I wanted my stop bar down (it was quite high originally) and the strings missing the back of the bridge so I top wrapped.
I always heard that the "correct" way to set it up was with the stop bar set high enough for the strings to clear the back edge of the bridge. And as already mentioned above, you'll need more height to clear a Nashville bridge than an ABR... My '78 was set up that way from the day I bought it in 1987 until very recently. I switched to the wrap around method maybe 3 string changes ago, just to see if I would like it. Some people say it makes a big difference to the way the strings feel due to the break angle... well I can't feel it. I've left it this way for now... no real preference yet. Maybe I'll switch back to the traditional method to avoid marking the chrome on the stop bar...
I had my LPC set up by a tech who raised the tailpiece up from where it was from the factory. I thought it looked really high but it works (tension is fine). I'll try and take a pic...
Jimmy page, Billy Gibbons, Duane Allman, and Joe Walsh (to name just a few) top wrapped, so it's probably ok.
Because they could? Some say it gives the guitar a looser, slinkier feel. I personally don't think there could be enough difference to make it noticeable.
That's the method I used with my last lightning bolt bar bridge. Give each string a solid tap with a hammer once they're all aligned properly.
I prefer a gentle break angle. My blonde 1980 Deluxe that the previous owner had routed for a full sized bridge pup has been just like this for the 25 years I've owned it. It was setup by a luthier who had instruments sent to him from all over the world. This guitar never broke a string in the decades I gigged it until it got too heavy for my older shoulders. It would hold tune for a week or more. When I set up my recently new to me 2004 faded red Studio I added in a Nashville spec roller bridge that matches the neck radius and closely mimicked the break angle of the Deluxe. I figured if it worked for all those years on the Deluxe, why not? 1980 Deluxe 2004 Studio
