Your opinion of top wrap to string a Les Paul

corona55

Just top wrapped mine a couple of weeks ago and I like it. Problem I had was similar to Neil's on the above post. I have a 70s tribute and the high E string had made a slight groove in the back of the Nashville bridge. Top wrapping eliminates all this and I like to have the tailpiece screwed all the way down. To make it work the other way the tailpiece studs had to be raised at least 1/4" up or maybe higher, not sure if this is good or not. 

ICBM

corona55 said:

Just top wrapped mine a couple of weeks ago and I like it. Problem I had was similar to Neil's on the above post. I have a 70s tribute and the high E string had made a slight groove in the back of the Nashville bridge. Top wrapping eliminates all this and I like to have the tailpiece screwed all the way down. To make it work the other way the tailpiece studs had to be raised at least 1/4" up or maybe higher, not sure if this is good or not. 

The basic problem is that Gibson can’t seem to make them with the right neck angle. Due to the crude way they’re fitted, it can vary drastically and a lot are far too steep, which means that the bridge ends up too high to allow the tailpiece to be set down against the body without the strings contacting the back edge of the bridge.

For me, there’s a simple solution to this problem - just don’t buy a Gibson with a steep neck angle. I find it alters the whole geometry and feel of the guitar as well, in a bad way - possibly even the sound. I struggle to get comfortable with the neck angle on a Les Paul anyway... so a convenient first check is just to look at the bridge height. If the height wheels need to be more than 1/4” above the body when the action is set right, it’s too high and I’m not interested in that guitar.

RaymondLin

ICBM said:

corona55 said:

Just top wrapped mine a couple of weeks ago and I like it. Problem I had was similar to Neil's on the above post. I have a 70s tribute and the high E string had made a slight groove in the back of the Nashville bridge. Top wrapping eliminates all this and I like to have the tailpiece screwed all the way down. To make it work the other way the tailpiece studs had to be raised at least 1/4" up or maybe higher, not sure if this is good or not. 

The basic problem is that Gibson can’t seem to make them with the right neck angle. Due to the crude way they’re fitted, it can vary drastically and a lot are far too steep, which means that the bridge ends up too high to allow the tailpiece to be set down against the body without the strings contacting the back edge of the bridge.

For me, there’s a simple solution to this problem - just don’t buy a Gibson with a steep neck angle. I find it alters the whole geometry and feel of the guitar as well, in a bad way - possibly even the sound. I struggle to get comfortable with the neck angle on a Les Paul anyway... so a convenient first check is just to look at the bridge height. If the height wheels need to be more than 1/4” above the body when the action is set right, it’s too high and I’m not interested in that guitar.

I honestly had no idea about the whole neck angle thing until I read your posts about them (some time ago), and I guess most people wouldn’t know either.  I know if you inspect the guitar carefully you can see it’s not slotted at a 0 degree but slightly off but at a glance you just presume it’s straight in.

ps how can you tell mine is at a low angle by that single photo?

fretfinder

Funkfingers said:

I only top wrap on guitars with a wrap-over combined bridge/tailpiece. 

Lol  

ICBM

RaymondLin said:

I honestly had no idea about the whole neck angle thing until I read your posts about them (some time ago), and I guess most people wouldn’t know either.  I know if you inspect the guitar carefully you can see it’s not slotted at a 0 degree but slightly off but at a glance you just presume it’s straight in.

ps how can you tell mine is at a low angle by that single photo?

By looking at the height of the bridge wheels above the body, and where the bridge pickup sits in the height ring even though it's close to the strings. You can tell the action is a little too low when you look at the end of the fingerboard, but not much - fitting the other two strings will probably pull the neck forward enough to fix that. (Also bearing in mind the guitar is lying on its back, so the weight of the neck pulls it backwards and lowers the action.)

The bottom line is that your guitar has been made correctly. Many aren't - including some in the 50s as well, but at some point Gibson intentionally increased the neck angle in order to give more leeway for their 'roughly in the right ballpark will do' approach to neck fitting. Believe it or not, the underside of the tenon is deliberately cut to allow 'wiggle room' - the exact opposite of how it should - and easily can - be done with modern tooling.

midlifecrisis

Voxman said:

My 2 cents is that it's a nonsense thing to do because it needlessly damages the tail piece. As @ICBM said, you don't need to do that to get the same feel, if that's what you want. I'd never ever do it.

disagree on both counts. Ive been doing it for about 2 years probably about 8-10 string changes and it hasnt marked the tail piece at all. And, maybe a false perception but it does seem to make the strings feel looser to bend, and it seems to help tuning stability.

stonevibe

I top wrap as it makes a great rest for your hand when palm muting, I prefer the break angle at the back and the feel is slightly slightly slinkier.

Couldn't care less if it isn't 'correct' and now bothered about marking my guitars. Only guitar it will not work on is my ESP LTD Phoenix 1000, as the bridge and tail piece are too close to one another and so the angle will not work, strings fall out slots on bridge etc 

Pity, as I love that guitar and would have liked it top wrapped.

TTBZ

That's the extent of the damage on my SG after 10 years of having it like this. I've next to bugger all. You can see on the plain strings where it's dug in and I haven't quite put it back in the same groove.

ICBM

TTBZ said:

That's the extent of the damage on my SG after 10 years of having it like this. I've next to bugger all. You can see on the plain strings where it's dug in and I haven't quite put it back in the same groove.

That's chrome plating - nickel and gold show it much worse. But some people aren't bothered by it anyway.

TTBZ

Fair enough. I always assumed I had nickel hardware!

PrecisionGuided

I went with the Faber Tone-Lock aluminium tailpiece with spacers and the narrower ABRN bridge.

ICBM

Nickel ones tend to go like this, or worse... often with much more obvious 'tracks' where the strings have been on top.



Probably not an issue if you're always going to do it, but looks a right mess if you don't.

LastMantra

Mine's wrap over for the first time just to see what difference it made. 
Very little IMO.

Jonathangus

My Gibson was top-wrapped when I got it.  I ran with it for a bit, but the problem was that the ends of the twists stuck up above the tailpiece and you'd cut your hand on them.  I got round it by using old ball-ends threaded over the strings as spacers, but eventually decided it wasn't worth the bother and swapped to normal stringing.

RaymondLin

ICBM said:

RaymondLin said:

I honestly had no idea about the whole neck angle thing until I read your posts about them (some time ago), and I guess most people wouldn’t know either.  I know if you inspect the guitar carefully you can see it’s not slotted at a 0 degree but slightly off but at a glance you just presume it’s straight in.

ps how can you tell mine is at a low angle by that single photo?

By looking at the height of the bridge wheels above the body, and where the bridge pickup sits in the height ring even though it's close to the strings. You can tell the action is a little too low when you look at the end of the fingerboard, but not much - fitting the other two strings will probably pull the neck forward enough to fix that. (Also bearing in mind the guitar is lying on its back, so the weight of the neck pulls it backwards and lowers the action.)

The bottom line is that your guitar has been made correctly. Many aren't - including some in the 50s as well, but at some point Gibson intentionally increased the neck angle in order to give more leeway for their 'roughly in the right ballpark will do' approach to neck fitting. Believe it or not, the underside of the tenon is deliberately cut to allow 'wiggle room' - the exact opposite of how it should - and easily can - be done with modern tooling.

Here all set up.

Voxman

midlifecrisis said:

Voxman said:

My 2 cents is that it's a nonsense thing to do because it needlessly damages the tail piece. As @ICBM said, you don't need to do that to get the same feel, if that's what you want. I'd never ever do it.

disagree on both counts. Ive been doing it for about 2 years probably about 8-10 string changes and it hasnt marked the tail piece at all. And, maybe a false perception but it does seem to make the strings feel looser to bend, and it seems to help tuning stability.

Perhaps you've just been lucky or your stoptail is particularly hard, but how can you disagree when there are photos on here that evidence the damage? Is your stoptail nickel?

earwighoney

ICBM said:

For me, there’s a simple solution to this problem - just don’t buy a Gibson with a steep neck angle. I find it alters the whole geometry and feel of the guitar as well, in a bad way - possibly even the sound. I struggle to get comfortable with the neck angle on a Les Paul anyway... so a convenient first check is just to look at the bridge height. If the height wheels need to be more than 1/4” above the body when the action is set right, it’s too high and I’m not interested in that guitar.

Great advice, but I'd change that for myself anyway to buy any guitar with a steep neck angle, be it acoustic or electric. 

Why do you not think a steep neck angle isn't great for the sound? This is something which is out of my understandings. I've seen in acoustic/nylon string world a low string height at the bridge is something which a few makers prefer for tonality, but I have no idea for why. I myself find for playing style (I rest the ring finger of my playing hand on the top of the guitar, a habit picked from flamenco) prefer a guitar with as low string height from the top of the guitar to the string height as possible.

SteveRobinson

I'd always look for an acoustic to have a bit of a neck angle so that I could still get a low action once the inevitable bridge rotation occurs

ICBM

earwighoney said:

Why do you not think a steep neck angle isn't great for the sound?

It just doesn't seem to be, with the Gibsons I've played. I've never yet found a really great-sounding one with an overly high bridge.

There's also the issue that when the bridge is up really high it seems to flex back and forward on the posts when you bend strings, and causes tuning problems. A friend had two LP Customs, one with a high bridge and one low, which seem to indicate that - the one with the high bridge would never stay in tune, and I'd done the same work on the nut on both of them.

DeeTee

What is it about the way Gibson put their necks on that causes such a variance? It doesn't seem to affect Epiphone etc.