My update tonight is both great, and disappointing.
I have said for a few years now, that the only guitar’s I’d confidently buy online (without playing them first) is PRS and Taylor. I admit that I never plugged this guitar in at the shop I bought it from, assuming after all I’d heard, that the pickups were great and the rest is, well, it’s PRS! That, too me, means you don’t have to worry about certain things. Anyway...
I’ve always been confident in my ability to “feel” things on a guitar. I’ve known since the first day I picked this guitar up that one issue was that things were TOO slinky. I knew it had 9s, and I have 9s on a couple guitar so that alone was not the issue. I also knew that “things” were messed up by removing a spring and having the bridge pulled up off the deck. So I changed to 9.5s, added the spring, reset the vibrato screws, tuned to pitch and waited for 2 days to make sure the neck had stabilized. My last posts were after all this, so...
Fast forward to now. Tonight, I started eyeballing all the string heights, knowing some were too low and that was probably the cause of all the buzzing. I got out the tool I use to measure string height and sure enough MOST strings were too low. I have no idea what “stock” is without posted specs, but I know enough to start with all 6 radius’d and at 4/64” as a general setting, at the 12th fret. 5 of the 6 strings were below this, several were half, so I loosened them all and set them all to 4/64”. I did check relief, and I still think I remember Paul saying in a video that it needed to be really straight for bends to work on this neck due to the radius... but all the string buzz was gone. So, I have not yet messed with the truss rod.
So now here is where we are. Neck pickups sounds GREAT. Middle (neck/bridge) sounds great. Bridge sounds good. 2 and 4 both sound weak and not acceptable, but I believe the middle pickup is reversed and that can be fixed.
My issue... every time I use the vibrato “ping” “ping” “ping”... I mean every time. It’s not the nut, it’s the bridge. So I look to the break points of the strings... looks like smooth polished metal too me... I know I use too many ... but I’m not a Roads Schooler.
Sorry had to try to make myself smile...
I got a bright flashlight out. Shined it down the saddles. What it looks like is that the windings of the strings are going over a sharp edge, on the body of the vibrato. The wound strings appear to have windings hitting this edge. The unwound strings appear to have their bottom windings hitting it! As of now, that’s the only thing I can find that’s “catching” and causing the constant pings... and complete lack of tuning stability.
I’m now above my luthier skill level, and don’t know what to do. This thing is close. If all the pinging was the nut, I’d polish it, but it’s the bridge. I will check it out, see where I can put “lube” and maybe update this thread again. Otherwise, it’s time for the professionals.