1997 CE 22 action issues

Also your saddles are in strange positions which makes me think the nut is your issue. String slot too high is making radical intonation settings.
 
It looks a little worn on the unwound strings and not very deep on the wound ones, but overall it doesn't look that bad. At this point I'd consider sending it to the PTC and letting them work their magic.
 
What puzzles me is it could not have left the factory needing the neck shimmed. So what caused this?

I hope the OP lets us in on what prs has to say.
 
I shimmed the neck over the weekend. Was able to get this thing into a playable condition finally. It feels good and the action is down where it should be. I don't hear any difference in sustain or overall sound so I'm happy. Here are some pics of it. The second pic shows that with the low E saddle bottomed out, the string rests on the frets, which was the starting point I needed. The tremelo is back to floating 1/16 off the body also.

All seems good except the intonation needs some work. I have a crappy tuner still and I also re-used the strings after re-setting the trem screws a second time so I don't think they are locked in like you get them on the first pass (ran out - more on the way).

Anyway, thanks for the help in trying to figure this out. I'm happy to provide more measurements or pics if there is interest.

http://cubeupload.com/im/elwoodblues1/IMG0647.jpg
http://cubeupload.com/im/elwoodblues1/IMG0648.jpg
 
I shimmed the neck over the weekend. Was able to get this thing into a playable condition finally. It feels good and the action is down where it should be. I don't hear any difference in sustain or overall sound so I'm happy. Here are some pics of it. The second pic shows that with the low E saddle bottomed out, the string rests on the frets, which was the starting point I needed. The tremelo is back to floating 1/16 off the body also.

All seems good except the intonation needs some work. I have a crappy tuner still and I also re-used the strings after re-setting the trem screws a second time so I don't think they are locked in like you get them on the first pass (ran out - more on the way).

Anyway, thanks for the help in trying to figure this out. I'm happy to provide more measurements or pics if there is interest.

http://cubeupload.com/im/elwoodblues1/IMG0647.jpg
http://cubeupload.com/im/elwoodblues1/IMG0648.jpg

Glad you've worked it out.

How do you like the StewMac shim? I keep thinking I need to get a couple to try out on my S style.
 
Just seeing this. I have a '95 CE-22 that I could not set up properly. The PTC confirmed that that it needed a shim. They did the job and it turned out great.
 
The stew mac shim worked good. I wish I could have drilled the new holes better. The hole pattern that it came with did not match the PRS so I started with the smallest bit I had and kept working my way up with it clamped to another piece of wood. It split on me in a small areas leading to the outer edge. If I was to do it over again, I would take a piece of scrap wood (or better yet some acrylic type see through material) and build a template first to clamp the complete surface area of the shim. Then try drilling it, hoping it wouldn't split.

They are awfully fine to be working with unless you have the light touch. If it fit right out of the box, it would have been a super quick fix.
 
Just seeing this. I have a '95 CE-22 that I could not set up properly. The PTC confirmed that that it needed a shim. They did the job and it turned out great.

I'm just blown away by this. It had to be fine when it left the factory. I really wish i understood what caused this problem.
 
I'm just blown away by this. It had to be fine when it left the factory. I really wish i understood what caused this problem.

So to be clear, I wasn’t the original owner. This was a true player guitar with plenty of miles on it. I handed it off to the PTC during a consult at the factory. It was either Matt or Shawn that I spoke to. I forget because I’ve had PTC work performed multiple times. It didn’t sound like this happened often, however.
 
In my situation, this guitar was hardly played at all. (I have put more scratches on it doing my work to it that it had when I bought it a few weeks ago) I think this guitar hung on the wall for years, untouched. There is a mark of where the hanger rested against the head stock. I am really thinking that it was not perfectly positioned on the hanger so there was some abnormal tension created from the weight of the body at that weird angle..... I posted a picture previously of how the E strings are not equidistant to the outer edge of the fret board. I think that is an indicator to some degree that the neck moved over time and in this case it was not from abuse or being played over the years, but from sitting/hanging in some sort of abnormal pressure.

I highly doubt it left the factory like this and PRS has always proven to exceed quality expectations. Something had to have caused it. Maybe the mahogany shrunk a bit over time...

Just some thoughts as I have been trying to figure it out also. This guitar is essentially a time capsule so it did not really have any miles on it. It came with all the original case candy and bill of sale from the dealer. Sold in 2000 so it hung/sat at the guitar store for a few years before finding a home. When you think of this way, the guitar could have been hanging almost all its life. With humid and dry air fluctuations over that period of time and no "relief" so to speak on the complete guitar weight pulling on those four screws, maybe that is a factor here...

I don't know though, I have other guitars that I've had hanging for sometimes long periods of time without issue. All are glued necks though.
 
Actually the seller just answered some questions about its storage. 10 years in the case basically un-played, then 5-6 years on the wall untouched. (in that order)
 
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