E strings misalignment

Hydra19

How important is it that both the E strings are the same distance from the edge of the fretboard? It seems not all are supposed to be equal, but is there a general rule?
I think the below is way out of line though, probably would feel weird to play. Any comments?

camerondavidsonmusic

Looks ok ish to me, the spacing on the high E could probably come in a touch but a new nut isnt mega bucks. I prefer the low E a little further away from the edge so you don't push it off on particular rough handed bends or hammer ons.... 

Funkfingers

If the guitar has a screwed on neck, the problem can be remedied by realigning the neck in the pocket.

If the guitar is a set or through neck, with a double locking vibrato, check that the nut/clamp is properly centred on the neck.

If the guitar is a fixed bridge Tune-O-Matic type, replace the saddles with new unslotted ones. With the strings at reduced tension, manoeuvre them into the alignment and spacing you desire. Mark each saddle for the required position. Make the notches.

BahHumbug

Depends.  The guitar in the photo is definitely wonky, but whether its a problem is up to you.  If its a guitar you are thinking of buying and if its a bolt on, then it should be possible to adjust.  If its a glued neck, then its not really adjustable, and you have to make a judgement.  For me, the high E might be a bit too close to the edge, so with a bit of 'less than optimal' fretting you could pull the string over the edge.  The low E wouldn't be a problem.

The possible adjustments, if its not obvious, are (1) the nut, and (2) the angle of the neck in the neck pocket.  If the nut was skewiff it would be a bit obvious, so I'd assume that the cause here is the neck angle.

RandallFlagg

I prefer the string spacing to be equal on both sides. It bugs me on Gibson Custom Shop guitars, I see many new ones for sale online with alignment all over the place. I've also see a few PRS with the problem.

In practice, when playing it's not a real issue as long as you don't "fall off" the fretboard when playing but for £5-6K a pop I would want a Custom Shop Gibson LP to be spot on for aesthetics if nothing else.

I'm not sure what the construction process is for setting the sideways alignment of the next when marrying it up to the neck pocket before gluing but they must have a method for setting the angle to the bridge? Although I guess at the time the bneck is set the bridge may not be fitted so I have no idea how it's done! 

Hydra19

This is a jackson soloist so it's a through neck. The seller said he never noticed it, as one would say if selling, but it does seem like it's like that on some guitars, so I agree it might not be a problem for some players, and for others it might. Thank you for the answers, I checked my own collection and not all are so aligned.
If I get it, and it needs fixing, this is the 1st place I'm going to come and ask for help. Thank you

ICBM

There are two issues there - the overall alignment is off, and the string spacing also is a bit - the E-B is noticeably bigger than the rest. (Even than the A-E, which is also slightly.) That makes me think it's at least partly a nut issue - especially as this appears to be frets 8-12, so the high E may be even closer to the edge of the board at the nut end.

Yes, it is a problem - you can see clear evidence from the wear on the fret tops that the high E slips off the side of the board.

If it's a bolt-on neck there could be misalignment at the pocket as well, or the bridge whatever type of neck it is.

Hydra19

It's not a bolt on neck, the neck is not adjustable, through neck. Here is the nut, looks better at this end

ICBM

That's got to be a bridge position/spacing problem then - must be an optical illusion in the earlier pic! The string spacing is OK at the nut but noticeably out by the 4th fret, both spacing and overall alignment.

Funkfingers

To my eyes, that nut/clamp looks off centre. It is faintly possible that the fastening screw holes have widened, allowing string tension to pull the hardware towards the high E side.

Since the offset error increases towards the bridge, part of the problem must lie there. The pivot surfaces could be worn or the posts and inserts could be out of true.

It would help to see a photograph of the string path from the bridge to the top few frets.

Hydra19

ICBM

I hope I'm not wrong in inferring from "would feel weird to play" that this is not your guitar... yet?

If so, make absolutely certain that it isn't going to become so.

Fixing that is going to be extremely difficult, if it's even practical at all. The bridge is fitted in the wrong place - not only too far over to the treble side, but also too far forwards - the saddles are at the backward end of the available adjustment range. To fix it properly you'll need to re-rout the top recess as well as fill and re-drill the post holes. There must also be some misalignment of the individual saddles for the string spacing to be as off as that, but that's the lesser of the issues.

Funkfingers

F me. Nothing lines up correctly. What is the (claimed) country of origin?

ICBM said:

The bridge is … too far forwards 

A side-on photograph of the vibrato pivot posts might show that they and/or the threaded inserts are pulling out of the body wood and leaning towards the neck.

ThePrettyDamned

That looks really weird, I wonder if the treble side post has worked loose.

I'm surprised Jackson let that out of QA, it looks pretty bad. The saddles are shunted way back. The bridge looks wonky - look at how far in the bass E comes, away from the edge of the fingerboard - super weird! 

ICBM

The whole recess is slightly too far to the treble side - look at how it lines up with the body centre seam. It's about 2mm out, which corresponds to the string alignment error on the neck.

HerrMetal

Ch-ackson ?  Probably from KSG Guitar Gardon Store on Aliexpress or similar. 

ThePrettyDamned

Odd that it has a Floyd rose - jacksons usually use a licensed one, unless it's a high end usa custom shop... But I'm not an expert. 

TINMAN82

I’ve noticed that there’s often a difference between low E vs high E to edge spacing on Gibson USAs (SGs in particular). I had it on an American vintage telecaster too, even following neck heel adjustment. On the tele it was a nut issue but the fretboard width was so narrowed by over rolling that narrowing string spacing to bring them in from the edge ruined the feel of the guitar. 

I guess in some cases it must also be influenced by manufacturing tolerances in wood that “moves” irrespective of quality of craftsmanship.

With this Jackson there’s clearly a difference in E to edge spacing (low vs high) at the nut. The spacing at the first fret will therefore never be 100% symmetrical irrespective of bridge position. It’s not awful at the nut end though, it does seem to get worse towards the bridge.

I don’t think we can state definitively that the tremolo recess is malpositioned based on these pics alone. Someone mentioned position relative to the centre seam on the top but here the centre seam doesn’t look perfectly centred so I don’t think it’s a reliable guide to hardware position.

Its possible the side to side bridge position is off but I think an experienced tech needs to dismantle the tremolo and check the posts and pivot blades. My thought would be if the treble side blade is more worn the whole bridge could be tilting to that side, which could shift the strings even further towards the treble side of the fretboard.

I wouldn’t buy a used guitar with pictures confirming this issue, too much of a gamble.

Hydra19

close up of the bridge: 



Would you buy it?

ICBM

Hydra19 said:

Would you buy it?

No! Absolutely not.

Unless it was so cheap that you could afford to have a professional top-rank luthier re-fit the bridge in the right place, which which will probably mean re-routing the recess and refinishing the top - you might just get away without doing, but I don't think so. That means *at least* £200-£300 less than this model would normally sell for, maybe more to be on the safe side.

It also looks like the treble side post has had the Allen key socket chewed up, so someone has Dremeled a screwdriver slot across the top of it. That's a very minor issue compared to all the rest (in theory it just needs the post replacing), but it also means that the action has probably been adjusted at full string tension, so the knife edges will be buggered as well... but I doubt that alone would explain how much too far forward it is - nor the misalignment, since it seems to be centred in the recess.

Sadly, it's just a bad guitar.

TINMAN82

Hydra19 said:

close up of the bridge: 



Would you buy it?

No, although based more on the earlier photos.

It’s possible with the trem adjusted and fresh blades it would improve a lot at the dusty end. Perhaps improve further still if the nut was also repositioned slightly (or changed). I think that’s as far as most people would go.

As I said, for me it’s too much of a gamble on a used guitar. If more basic measures didn’t get string alignment within tolerable limits I don’t think re-routing and re-drilling to change the bridge position is realistic.