string to pole piece alignment

[henryr]

My strings are all off center to the pole pieces about 2mm (.080) towards the bass side. This puts the strings over the edge of the pole pieces. This shift is the same at both the neck and bridge pups. I removed the pup mounting screws and found the cavity side wall wouldn’t allow the pups to be moved in the desired direction. It appears I have two options; either remove some wood off the bass side pup cavity walls so the pups can be moved or move the bridge. I haven’t yet decided what option will be easier but I'm leaning towards moving the pups.

Regarding the misalignment I'm thinking the Korean manufacturer doesn't machine as well as PRS in the US. Does anyone else having strange or poor alignment of various components on Korean PRS guitars? All thoughts on this repair will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
henryr

 

[shinksma]

You don't say which model you have. If you have a stop-tail bridge, someone else here noticed that if he loosened off his strings, he could shift the stop tail on the mounting bolts enough to get the strings aligned.

All four of my SEs have nicely aligned strings/pickups. I don't think it is a widespread problem, if that is what you are asking.

Can you post pics and more details?

EDIT: OK, I found some other posts you made in the SE Mods thread about a problematic bridge set up on a Paul Allender, where you reamed out the bridge mounting holes or something. Is that the guitar you are now having issues with?

I dunno man, something weird with that guitar, nothing seems to be going right for ya.

Pics would help either way.

 

[Deleted member 2284]

I don't think any of my guitars have pole pieces that are totally aligned with the strings. I don't worry about it. If it sounds good, it is good. This includes a Core PRS.

 

[vchizzle]

Someone else here bent the pickup's legs slightly and get the pole pieces to align better.

 

[DHW]

So you have changed the nut and been grinding on the bridge mounting screws and the bridge itself on a new guitar? I don't know... I think I would start with those 2 items and being suspect.

 

[henryr]

This is an update on my Allender guitar. As mentioned, in an other post, I did make a fossil ivory nut and bought a 2000NOS Mannmade trem bridge. After installing the nut and new bridge the string to pole piece misalignment didn't change at all and I didn't expect it to change because I used the PRS nut spacing for the new nut and the new bridge was mounted in the same original mounting holes drilled in the top when the guitar was made in Korea.

I'm considering moving the pups or bridge but haven't yet decided which I will move. The guitar sounds pretty good so I'll wait to make any changes when I have to change strings. Until then I 'm going to experiment with adjusting pup heights and individual pole piece heights to get the sound closer to a blues/jazz sound. I like to tinker and its all harmless fun.

 

[henryr]

After staring at the guitar, trying to understand the reason for the pole piece to string misalignment, I may have found the cause. I measured the distance in from the neck edges to the high and low E strings, just below the nut, and found them the same. While just looking at strings at the 24[SUP]th[/SUP] fret it was easy to see the high E was near the neck edge and low E was in quite a bit in from the edge.

Moving those strings, by hand at the 24[SUP]th[/SUP] fret to make them equidistant from the neck edges put the strings right over the center of the pole pieces. All six strings have the same misalignment. This makes me think the six bridge mounting holes were drilled, as a group towards the treble side of the guitar.

Based on the measurements I think the fix would be filling and re-drilling the six bridge mounting holes about 1.5mm towards the bass side or have a bridge made with hole locations to dimensions I specify. All thoughts on this repair or other options will be greatly appreciated.

 

[rugerpc]

Is there a tone problem?

If no, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be contemplating reconstructing the guitar by relocating the bridge...

 

[henryr]

The guitar sounds very good and the Mannmade one piece bridge really improved sustain and sound in general. However I don't like how the high E string gets closer to the neck edge as you move down the neck and at the 24th fret it is quite close to the edge. That is what really makes me want to move the bridge.

As I mentioned finding a bridge not yet drilled would be the easiest fix so I called John Mann hoping he had one but he didn't.

As a last resort I will use my small machine shop. I was a vendor to one of the largest US aerospace companies so I feel comfortable filling the existing holes with an epoxy or small hard wood dowels glued in place and milling new shifted holes. The setup will be the hardest part of the job regarding accuracy and avoiding damage to the finish when clamping the guitar to the machine table. I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

[Hedonismbot]

Is there a tone problem?

If no, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be contemplating reconstructing the guitar by relocating the bridge...

+1 I am completely OCD about stuff like pole piece alignment, but I couldn't agree more with this statement. If the tone is solid, I'd just live with it.

 

[dogrocketp]

I have a drop dead gorgeous Tremonti SE Custom with the same problem. I decided to live with it as best I can. As long as the guitar will stay in tune, I`ll consider it a quirk.

 

[henryr]

Thanks for the replies. I removed the new MannMade Bridge before its mounting holes or screws got burred or damaged. The reason I thought that might happen is that, while mounting the bridge, some of the screws were very difficult to screw into the mounting holes because they were rubbing against the edges of some of the bridge holes.

With the MannMade bridge removed I measured its holes and all were perfectly spaced and in a straight line.

I then measured the machined mounting holes in the guitar top. They were unevenly spaced over .01 but more significantly they weren't in a straight line. I put screws in the first and last holes in the top and put a precision straight edge against those screws and found the 4 holes in-between were not in a straight line with some out of line over 1mm. Also the straight edge was out of parallel with to the pups by slightly more than 1mm.

Bottom line is that not only were the strings shifted, as a group, by about 1.5mm towards the base side but the mounting holes were also poorly spaced and not in a straight line. Thus it is not surprising that trying to mount the new bridge was difficult.

It is also probably the reason the original bridge had such burred holes and screws and was poorly setup and as I mentioned in an earlier post the original bridge was also out of parallel to the pups and the strings were all shifted towards the bass side over 1.5mm.

The guitar in going on one of my milling machines for mounting hole corrections.