Torn about my Mccarty and going to the shop..

bodia said:
I've got her sister!

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Say wha?! When did that happen? Gorgeous board on that one!

That pic of mine is pre-makeover. Ivory rings, lampshades and a 2300 take it to the next level.



Aaanyway, I was under the impression nut material has changed since '04, but that's not based on any particular knowledge. PRS has always been very cagey about their nut material.
 
garrett said:
Say wha?! When did that happen? Gorgeous board on that one!

That pic of mine is pre-makeover. Ivory rings, lampshades and a 2300 take it to the next level.



Aaanyway, I was under the impression nut material has changed since '04, but that's not based on any particular knowledge. PRS has always been very cagey about their nut material.
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A couple of weeks ago. Ridiculously low price that I couldn't pass up. Guy was itching to buy an Axe-FX and parted with the HB to raise funds. I need to order a Mann for it.
 
So I Iied. I got cold feet in April and just sat on the guitar for a while figuring exactly what I wanted to do first. So TODAY, it went in. My guy spent an hour and a half talking about the guitar and what we were going to do with it. He played it,I played it, I also played 5 different guitars in the shop, all with different actions and set ups, and liked mine the best. Upon first open strum, he heard noise on all the wound strings. We decided on a black horn nut to replace the standard factory. I almost passed out when he loosened the strings, took off the truss cover, and hit it lightly with a rubber hammer and the nut popped off cleanly and effortlessly. I will get a pro set up which includes dressing the frets at the usual locations, stringing and setting up for 10's and that new nut, which looks like the old nut only with much less depth to the unwound strings. He was also going to fix the budweiseritis ding I put in the lower bout....2 weeks...or there about.
 
If nothing else, it sounds like a good set up was needed. Hopefully you will have a "new" guitar in 2 weeks & one that you are happy with tone wise.
 
I've come to understand that I stumbled into the most desired and knowledgeable luthier on Oahu, possibly all of Hawaii. Most all of the Hawaiian artists take their instruments to him, I'm just Joe Blow, but he treats me like I'm the only guitar in the shop. He's done 3 of mine now with this one. Any tech that takes enough time to sit, talk, play, offer suggestions or "lets not do that" is ok in my book. My two strats he did first play better than they ever did in their lifetime with me. I have no doubt that this one will turn out great. He was curious to the guitar. Where did you get this one?? Texas. No wonder, there are probably only 9 or 10 McCarty's in the islands. He said this makes 3 of them he has personally worked on.
 
I picked it up about 30 minutes ago. It's wonderful. My fears were not realized. The big ding just went away, it's not noticeable, and unless I told you, you'd never know. The new horn nut is great, he made it look almost identical to the original, and it plays better than it ever has. I don't know if it was show, or true, but another guy was in there getting his checked out and the tech held up a strobe tuner and said, "play something Jay", ok, so I do, and I swear that strobe hit perfect on every note. These guys are great. Intonation is perfect, action is perfect, I'm very very pleased.
 
Parralax view said:
I picked it up about 30 minutes ago. It's wonderful. My fears were not realized. The big ding just went away, it's not noticeable, and unless I told you, you'd never know. The new horn nut is great, he made it look almost identical to the original, and it plays better than it ever has. I don't know if it was show, or true, but another guy was in there getting his checked out and the tech held up a strobe tuner and said, "play something Jay", ok, so I do, and I swear that strobe hit perfect on every note. These guys are great. Intonation is perfect, action is perfect, I'm very very pleased.
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Really glad things worked out!!!
 
Parralax view said:
My McCarty needs to go in for a set up and some light fret work to remove flats at the 5th and 7th and the divots at the first, second and third frets that are common to all guitars. That's not my issue. My issue is the nut. It has given a ping or two recently when it has never given issue. However, in it's life, it's probably had 80 to 90 string changes, that's a lot of playing at least for me.

My practice when I take a guitar in for set up is to install a bone nut if it has plastic or other. My guy can provide any color I deem appropriate, black / dark would be my choice. My question is, are the PRS stock nuts in Graphite workable?? The strings sit very deep and always have. Since they sit deep, will it make it worse if the nut is even deeper?? Will it do anything to value?

I have a ding I'm going to have him check out and repair if possible, or maybe not if he deems it unneeded. I was just curious if anyone had ever removed their stock teflon black nut and installed bone and what were the results both in performance and appearance??
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Nuts origially before inpregnated plastics, HDPE, Teflon, graphite compounds were bone being Ivory., followed by brass. I too have HBII and 3 other PRS, and they all have a secret Prs compound? Which i am not a fan of as tempreture changes shrinks the slots, and causes binding, leading to out of tune issues; so i have had to widen the slots maginally ,and use graphite powder. (IF you cannot source this crush up a pencil) .You have had success with bone and have been happy so use it, you could allways dye it black. But i have noticed on all my guitars the strings sit not to deep just below the top of the nut; which is correct. Paul said recently, that anything that touches the strings is critical; correct, and now he has employed brass at the saddles; interesting? So maybe he is going back to a natural material being brass , and we might see this again, as a material for top nuts ,as it works, rings, and its bright. I hope that helps you a little regards Stevie

;
 
Stevie F said:
Nuts origially before inpregnated plastics, HDPE, Teflon, graphite compounds were bone being Ivory., followed by brass. I too have HBII and 3 other PRS, and they all have a secret Prs compound? Which i am not a fan of as tempreture changes shrinks the slots, and causes binding, leading to out of tune issues; so i have had to widen the slots maginally ,and use graphite powder. (IF you cannot source this crush up a pencil) .You have had success with bone and have been happy so use it, you could allways dye it black. But i have noticed on all my guitars the strings sit not to deep just below the top of the nut; which is correct. Paul said recently, that anything that touches the strings is critical; correct, and now he has employed brass at the saddles; interesting? So maybe he is going back to a natural material being brass , and we might see this again, as a material for top nuts ,as it works, rings, and its bright. I hope that helps you a little regards Stevie

;
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The original was starting to ping. The bone nut is black horn. He left all the shiny off of it to replicate the appearance of the original. I let him know that white was out, so if he could not do black, not to change it. I noticed a marked difference in where the strings sit as you suggest, they are not so much in the nut but on it with a slight sink, the original had them well down into the nut. What ever magic he did, he did it right.
 
Parralax view said:
The original was starting to ping. The bone nut is black horn. He left all the shiny off of it to replicate the appearance of the original. I let him know that white was out, so if he could not do black, not to change it. I noticed a marked difference in where the strings sit as you suggest, they are not so much in the nut but on it with a slight sink, the original had them well down into the nut. What ever magic he did, he did it right.
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Hi thats good news, knowing your luthier understands the correct depth. It appears an issue on all of the Prs guitars i have owned, but a simple fix corrects it. For your own information on the correct width of the slot, which some how is never mentioned, and is so important, if say using a 9s guage higher E string, the slot width required is that of a 10s guage higher E string.
If using a size 10s guage higher E string, would require the width size of an 11s guauge higher E string and so on. Thats the formula. Enjoy your guitar now make music Stevie
 
One thing I did notice that did seem to improve the tone but left me wondering as to the geometry of the new nut, the strings now have a very very slight slant to them from the back of the nut to the post. Having strung this guitar probably 40 or 50 times, I always remembered the strings going straight to the post from the nut. A new owner or someone unfamiliar with PRS in the slightest way, wouldn't notice it at all. It doesn't seem to affect anything at all, but I think the slots might be a hair closer together, ala Gibson.
 
Parralax view said:
One thing I did notice that did seem to improve the tone but left me wondering as to the geometry of the new nut, the strings now have a very very slight slant to them from the back of the nut to the post. Having strung this guitar probably 40 or 50 times, I always remembered the strings going straight to the post from the nut. A new owner or someone unfamiliar with PRS in the slightest way, wouldn't notice it at all. It doesn't seem to affect anything at all, but I think the slots might be a hair closer together, ala Gibson.
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I've got PRS guitars from 88 to 2012. Every one has that slight angle. It's always been there.
 
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