12-string set-up blues

[Rick Homan]

A friend brought me a no-name, laminate 12-string for set-up. The fit and finish on it are quite decent. The action was so high as to be unplayable. The joint of the neck heel to the body looks solid: no finish cracks.

To date, I have:
1) installed JDL Bridge doctor to flatten the bellied top. It worked like a charm, and the guitar sounds great. I used the brass-pin version, because there is no place to drill a hole in the 12's bridge.
2) lowered the nut slots for .012 - .016 string height at the first fret.
3) tightened the truss rod as far as it will go -- I think.
4) shaved the saddle as to not much more than radius.

As a result, the guitar plays nicely in first position, but from about the fifth fret on the action gets high. String height at the 12th fret is 8/64" (3.175 mm) . My friend would like to have it play for fingerstyle all along the neck.

My options would seem to be:
1. Shave the entire bridge down so the saddle can be lowered further.
2. Do a "saw-sand-and-bolt" neck re-set." From its general construction, I am guessing this is a post-1970 mass-produced guitar, so removing the neck is probably not an option.

Any thoughts about getting that string height down? Thanks, in advance!

[Rick Homan]

I put a set of octave strings on it which start with .010's for the high "e".

[Rick Gentry]

Howdy.
I have an "Art of Luthiery" from Canada, is a great player, and they told me that the warranty would be voided if I put more than .010s on it. It is my opinion, but some guitars are just aren't meant to live forever.

[Tim Mace]

well Rick whudya think?

[Rick Homan]

Thanks for asking, Tim! Here is what I think.

1. Frets.net is a great place to tap the collective experience and intelligence of people working on guitars.

2. Anecdotally, I agree with those who have posted here and in similar discussions. I put a home-made bridge-doctor in an all-laminate, .ca 1973 Harmony, and it flattened the top and seems to have made the guitar sound better, even allowing for the placebo effect. I have more experiments to do with this guitar.

3. Theoretically, I find myself weighing the issues Antonio raises alongside what I learned yesterday from Ervin Somogyi's lecture at the Healdsburg Guitar Festival. He holds that a guitar top pumps air in three ways: 1) by moving up and down like a piston, 2) by rocking side to side and 3) by rocking end to end. In the latter two, the bridge is the fulcrum. In his view, all bracing is an attempt to control the ways in which the top does these things. Personally, I don't see why the JLD would necessarily do a worse job of this than any other form of bracing. Those interested may wish to look here for an experiment by the inventor of the JLD.

Mostly, I am just glad to be able to report to my friend that there is a consensus that its present condition is as good as it will get for this guitar.

Thanks to all!

[Antonio Cotichini]

Jeffrey, I'm happy that you find the Bridge Doctor more useful than its creator and sellers.
Rick, I've never said that the Bridge Doctor is a sort of disaster for the guitar's tone. If you've carefully read my posts (in the right order), you can see how simple is my point: Bridge Doctor is born as a cure for bellied bridges. And I still think it's an aesthetically ugly device that I will never use on a fine guitar but just to save a cheap one from fire.
Peace to everybody
Antonio
P.S. I don't know why many of the posts aren't in chronological order. Must read the dates.

[Magnus Hultin]

Being a novis in guitar construction theory I am absolutely thrilled to se the Somogoy description, and I am deadshure this is just on the highest level. There is more to it than that.

Some thoughts, and mind You, this is just what I beleive. If I am totally wrong I want to have these silly ideas buried.

Of the 3 pumping movements descriped it is the end-to-end I was after. On a guitar without JLD this pumping movement is partly triggered by the bridge rotating back and forth along an axis near the root of the bridge just in front of the saddlebone and the result is movement in the part of the top to the rear of the bridge.

There is also movement in the top caused by the entire bridge moving up and down.

As far as I can see, putting a bridg doctor in, more or less removes the first part I describe, due to the rod locked to the end block. It would surprice me if it does not reduce or at least affect the compexity of the sound produced by the guitar.

I know that a change in sound is difficult to quantify. What is better sounding?
The JLD itself adds some mass to bottom of the bridge, perhaps this increases volume?

As to the demonstration in the link above, there seem to be nothing left of the original design of this Taylor, in terms of how the sound is produced. My assumption is that the JLD in principle could be replaced by an archtop tailpiece on the topside, which would restrict the tops movements in the same way. And prevennt further bellying.

And isn´t this the old fashioned way of giving an old guitart a similar cure?

[Antonio Cotichini]

Yeah! I don't know to whom you refer when you say .."and mind You", since your post appeared just below mine (I've already said that the chronological order of the posts jumped), but I agree with you from the beginning.
Now, re-reading all the tread, I think there's a precise statement I have to do.
Also if JLD Breedlove system and Bridge Doctor seems to be the same thing, IMO they're different because the first (as I already expressed) is the central part around which the tone and all the rest of the guitar project is build, and the external aspect of the guitar is safe. So, I can respect the idea as if it was a particular way to intend the whole bracing system. And the final tone is the one considered from the project.
The second (Bridge Doctor) is a device (I called it "crouch") that a repairer ADDS to an existing project, and this absolutely affects the original tone. We can talk if the new tone is better or worse than the original (if someone is curious can have a look on www.guitarnoise.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=36961 and hardly find someone really satisfied), but it changes. Definitely the intent of the Bridge Doctor is to lower a bellied bridge. And those metal parts and the new way the string are mounted, are sight shocking. Not to talk about the fact that, from time to time, it loosens and needs to be tightened to recover a decent tone.
Your idea is my idea.
Antonio

[Magnus Hultin]

Quote:"I don't know to whom you refer when you say .."and mind You", since your post appeared just below mine (I've already said that the chronological order of the posts jumped), but I agree with you from the beginning."

Antonio,

I clicked "Reply to this" under Ricks post above, I guess it ends up at the bottom of all replies to this post, which I guess is fair...

And I meant no one in particular, sort of talking to the crowd...

[Rick Homan]

Magnus, your analysis of the effect of the JLD on the movements described by Somogyi makes sense to me. The JLD is, in effect, a lever attached to the bridge, perpendicular to the guitar's top; the rod which pushes on the tailblock initially pushes the lever toward the neck of the guitar and then holds it in place. So, it is hard to imagine how the top could then rock end to end. Still, as you imply, we are left to ponder how that translates into a change in the sound of the guitar and whether or not one likes the change.

I am probably as much a novice in this area as you, and so I would not presume to represent the ideas of a master such as Somogyi beyond a few initial points. For those wanting to know more, his website is: www.esomogyi.com.

Your suggestion of adding an archtop-style tailpiece (and bridge, presumably) to a guitar with a bellied top is interesting. I have always thought of archtop and flattop as alternate systems, and have never heard this suggested as a cure. But, it would be worth trying on an expendable guitar.

[Magnus Hultin]

I have seen plenty of old flattops, especially 12-strings, where a tailpiece has been added-on later, and an original glued bridge is left to hold the saddlebone. I have allways assumed this modification to be an easy way out to fix a bellied top. Not that it removed the belly completely but the existing belly is likely to go back slightly, and for shure it stops further movement.

But, As I wrote before, the movement implied to the tops from the strings will never be the same again, just as after fitting a Bridgedoctor. It will sound differrent, and not nescessarily to the worse.

Magnus

PS. One example:

[Tim Mace]

The best of all possible solutions.Think of all the stress relief.There's a lot to be said for good tailpiece.

[Rick Homan]

Thanks, Magnus, for the idea and the example!