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NGD! Finally, the Charvel GG Signature Model
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alexkhan



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

JohnnyFavorite wrote:
Ed, do you know what the story is with the little brass dots that were located beside the volume and tone controls on Guthrie's prototypes? They don't seem to have made it to the production models.


So I heard that it was Guthrie's request to get the dots removed and eventually get numbered knobs on the guitar at a later date.
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JohnnyFavorite



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PostPosted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Makes sense.

I use my volume pot a lot for going from dirty to clean. Always good to know where you are. I quite like Jaguar/Mustang knobs for this very reason.
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petros



Joined: 26 Feb 2015
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 9:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

alexkhan wrote:
As promised, some photos of the back of my Charvel GG Signature Model guitar. Please note that I removed the Tremol-No unit on mine. I may just end up removing the trem backplate altogether, which is what Guthrie normally does.











The feel of this neck is really amazing. It's the sleekest and the fastest playing neck I've ever felt but it has enough girth to feel great when wrapping your hand around it to bend strings or play chords. Just beautiful. Very Happy


Has he got it removed on his current no. 1 too?
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alexkhan



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 9:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No, Guthrie very much likes and uses the Tremol-No all the time. He does a great job of maintaining it because whenever I pick up his guitars and try 'em, it feels like the Tremol-No isn't there. He does all the string changes and setup work himself before a gig, which is almost every night. I'm too lazy to change the strings more than once every few months but I do check on the neck bow and adjust the truss rod regularly.
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petros



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PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 9:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

alexkhan wrote:
No, Guthrie very much likes and uses the Tremol-No all the time. He does a great job of maintaining it because whenever I pick up his guitars and try 'em, it feels like the Tremol-No isn't there. He does all the string changes and setup work himself before a gig, which is almost every night. I'm too lazy to change the strings more than once every few months but I do check on the neck bow and adjust the truss rod regularly.


Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I meant whether he had removed the backplate.
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alexkhan



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PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 7:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

petros wrote:
alexkhan wrote:
No, Guthrie very much likes and uses the Tremol-No all the time. He does a great job of maintaining it because whenever I pick up his guitars and try 'em, it feels like the Tremol-No isn't there. He does all the string changes and setup work himself before a gig, which is almost every night. I'm too lazy to change the strings more than once every few months but I do check on the neck bow and adjust the truss rod regularly.


Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I meant whether he had removed the backplate.


Yes, the backplate is removed.
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petros



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PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 9:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Regarding Tremol-No: pardon my ignorance, but I thought the system was most useful for those who don't use the whammy bar all the time or at all, whereas GG does use it all the time, doesn't he?
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alexkhan



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PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 10:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

petros wrote:
Regarding Tremol-No: pardon my ignorance, but I thought the system was most useful for those who don't use the whammy bar all the time or at all, whereas GG does use it all the time, doesn't he?


He uses the Tremol-No primarily for songs that have drop-D tuning and since he normally can't travel with more than one guitar at a time. When the Tremol-No is engaged and the low-E is tuned down to D, he cannot use the trem. Well, he can but then the guitar would get knocked out of tune and become useless.

Gotta be careful to not grab that arm when it's engaged and you have changed the tuning. Using the arm would disengage Tremol-No to floating and then all the strings would be out of tune and that's not something you want to happen in the middle of a song during a performance.
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petros



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PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 8:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

alexkhan wrote:
petros wrote:
Regarding Tremol-No: pardon my ignorance, but I thought the system was most useful for those who don't use the whammy bar all the time or at all, whereas GG does use it all the time, doesn't he?


He uses the Tremol-No primarily for songs that have drop-D tuning and since he normally can't travel with more than one guitar at a time. When the Tremol-No is engaged and the low-E is tuned down to D, he cannot use the trem. Well, he can but then the guitar would get knocked out of tune and become useless.

Gotta be careful to not grab that arm when it's engaged and you have changed the tuning. Using the arm would disengage Tremol-No to floating and then all the strings would be out of tune and that's not something you want to happen in the middle of a song during a performance.


Oh that makes sense!
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petros



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PostPosted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Btw, I found really encouraging your comments regarding the guitarists' need to do their own setup. I never used to do it, but recently I've been fiddling more with truss rod, action, etc. Speaking of action, do you know what does Guthrie nowadays with his action? I heard he used to have it pretty low; back in the Suhr days, he'd supposedly set it even lower than the production setup?
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alexkhan



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PostPosted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 1:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

petros wrote:
Btw, I found really encouraging your comments regarding the guitarists' need to do their own setup. I never used to do it, but recently I've been fiddling more with truss rod, action, etc. Speaking of action, do you know what does Guthrie nowadays with his action? I heard he used to have it pretty low; back in the Suhr days, he'd supposedly set it even lower than the production setup?


Guthrie does keep the action on the low side but it isn't super low. I measure the action at the neck-body joint, which is typically the 17th fret. Some people (and companies) like to measure at the 12th and some measure at the last (22nd or 24th). I'd say Guthrie's action is at around 3/64" at the 17th, perhaps a tad higher. I like it at around 4/64 (1.6mm) with the wound bass strings and a little over 3/64" (1.2mm) with the plain treble strings.

I keep the neck bow fairly straight - around .006" ~ .008" but I know some people like their necks even straighter. Really depends on how hard you hit the open strings and what the nut slot heights are. For my work I have to use feeler gauges and a ruler that measures in 1/64" increments or 0.5mm (I'm equally comfortable with the metric system) but for my own guitars I just go by what feels right.
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petros



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PostPosted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 7:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

alexkhan wrote:
petros wrote:
Btw, I found really encouraging your comments regarding the guitarists' need to do their own setup. I never used to do it, but recently I've been fiddling more with truss rod, action, etc. Speaking of action, do you know what does Guthrie nowadays with his action? I heard he used to have it pretty low; back in the Suhr days, he'd supposedly set it even lower than the production setup?


Guthrie does keep the action on the low side but it isn't super low. I measure the action at the neck-body joint, which is typically the 17th fret. Some people (and companies) like to measure at the 12th and some measure at the last (22nd or 24th). I'd say Guthrie's action is at around 3/64" at the 17th, perhaps a tad higher. I like it at around 4/64 (1.6mm) with the wound bass strings and a little over 3/64" (1.2mm) with the plain treble strings.

I keep the neck bow fairly straight - around .006" ~ .008" but I know some people like their necks even straighter. Really depends on how hard you hit the open strings and what the nut slot heights are. For my work I have to use feeler gauges and a ruler that measures in 1/64" increments or 0.5mm (I'm equally comfortable with the metric system) but for my own guitars I just go by what feels right.


Thanks, Ed. Really helpful!
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petros



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PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2015 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

btw, I heard that basswood is a really fragile kind of wood. I wonder whether the baking actually makes it also more sturdy? Any thoughts?
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terje_t



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PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2015 8:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know about basswood specifically, Pete, but there's an informative discussion on one of the Fretboard Journal podcast episodes about torrified woods:

http://www.fretboardjournal.com/podcast/podcast-81-dana-bourgeois-torrefied-guitar-woods

I am having a hard time separating the science from the opinions in the matter, but I remember Dana Bourgeois having a theory about the process kind of melting and redistributing some stuff in the wood, thus stabilising it. I guess that might strengthen it too, but who knows.

I would love to hear more about this.
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petros



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PostPosted: Fri May 08, 2015 6:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

terje_t wrote:
I don't know about basswood specifically, Pete, but there's an informative discussion on one of the Fretboard Journal podcast episodes about torrified woods:

http://www.fretboardjournal.com/podcast/podcast-81-dana-bourgeois-torrefied-guitar-woods

I am having a hard time separating the science from the opinions in the matter, but I remember Dana Bourgeois having a theory about the process kind of melting and redistributing some stuff in the wood, thus stabilising it. I guess that might strengthen it too, but who knows.

I would love to hear more about this.


Thanks, Terje, that's very helpful. If that's so, then the basswood would perhaps stiffen up a bit.
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