Bridge pin holes not perpendicular to the bridge and the bridge plate;

[Fred Parczewski]

Hi... During a search on this issue I stumbled upon a 2013 post here about the same thing though there was no real answer. I'm wondering if it's "normal feature"?. I bought a new 2012 Gibson songwriter Deluxe Standard in the fall and during my second string change I noticed the low E pin was going in at an angle. So I looked down all the holes and they were all like that...though the low E seemed to be worse. So what to do... Return the guitar or fix it; but how? Anybody?

[Mark McLean]

Fred

Pretty often around here a thread gets started which is basically a lament for the crappy quality control of some venerated guitar factories.  Gibson is most often the name being trashed in such conversations - but is by no means the only offender.  You ask if this is a "normal feature" - well I am sure it is not supposed to be like that.  It is just that someone wasn't being all that careful as they drilled holes in a $3000 guitar.  

Do you even need to do anything about it?  Is it really causing you a problem?  The job of bridge pins is the hold the strings down and this pin in probably doing its job perfectly well.  It shouldn't cause any structural or tonal problems.  It is really only an important problem if it looks bad once the pins are back in place and the strings are on. 

If it looks bad you will want it fixed.  You could complain to Gibson and should be covered by warranty if you bought it new and are the original owner.  Failing that it would be a pretty easy job to ream out the hole with a pin hole reamer, straightening its angle.  You would then need to ream all the holes to this slightly larger size and replace the original pins (probably plastic anyway) with some slightly thicker ones made of a nice solid timber or horn. 

If you don't feel confident doing it yourself, or don't want to buy a reamer for a one-off job ($65 from StewMac), this would be a very simple job for a professional luthier.  You could get him/her to take a general look at the guitar's setup while they are at it and probably end up loving your Songwriter even more than before!

Mark

[Roger Häggström]

Great post! I like it when the string pins leans a bit backward in the direction to the endpin. But not much. Exactly 90 degrees to the top don't feel right, can't explain why....