2020 LPjr bridge studs & nut issues.

[spupilup]

If your studs are really as offset as you say, don't go with a heavy, adjustable bridge. Instead, spring for the Music City Stud Finder bridge. It is specifically designed for early wrap tails and is effective for the most recent Gibson releases that seemed to have mistakenly installed studs in extreme positions. There have been people talking about this issue.

Here's a link to the Stud Finder. It will help you and keep your guitar looking normal.

“Stud Finder” Compensated wraparound tailpiece - Music City Bridge

The best replacement Wraparound Tailpiece for 1950s and 1960s original Gibsons with offset bridge studs

musiccitybridge.com

 

[Leee]

Aw, shucks @mudface
You’re making me blush!

Faber

Right on.
I’ve never been disappointed in Faber hardware.

 

[spupilup]

Yeah, I just got a new one of those and I’m gonna order an adjustable bridge for it because it’s really far back just to get it initiated

My recommendation for the Stud Finder was for you.

 

[dbruno]

So about the nut. Not enough detail in your pics, but it almost appears as if someone was short and sandwiched two pieces together to make it tall enough to work. Hopefully that wasn’t the case. If so an easy fix to remove, clean and make a new one.

 

[Steve2112]

I’ve owned plenty of guitars with wrap tailpieces, and I tried to like them.

Just couldn’t do it.

I’ve wanted a Les Paul Junior for 30 years, and this was part of the reason I never bought one.
I even looked seriously at buying a few vintage ones, back when they were relatively cheap.

I finally found a 2005 that was in good shape, priced reasonably, and had a slim neck.
Perfect for a little experiment.

So putting a TOM on it was sort of my middle finger to the universe.
I love that Junior.
No one else has to.

I am also not fond of them. I use my palm...a LOT! It's one reason Ilike a Floyd...large flat surface. TOM okay to...there's space for me to work. Wraps I feel like half of my process is gone or muted.

 

[KelvinS1965]

Couldn't find this thread again after I took some photos of mine. I'm not sure if the OP's guitar is a Custom shop model, as mine is the regular Gibson version, from 2019.

I took this photo of the bridge earlier, after I adjusted the screw to get the intonation a bit better. In fact it's really pretty good now, so I have zero need for any 'upgraded' bridge on mine. It's no worse (probably better) than my Telecaster with it's 3 saddle bridge:

My nut also has a bit of flaky lacquer. I think my SG and my 60s Tribute also had similar, but I've replaced the nuts on those. Sometime I might just carefully scrape the side of the nut to tidy it up, but it doesn't really bother me.

From above (I replaced the truss rod cover for a single ply black one):

Better view from the side:

Basically, nothing to worry about and 'they all do that sir'.

 

[LPTDMSV]

Sometime I might just carefully scrape the side of the nut to tidy it up, but it doesn't really bother me.

Tip: If you’re going to do this, score around the nut end with a scalpel or other very sharp blade to reduce the risk of lacquer flaking off the wood too.

 

[KelvinS1965]

Tip: If you’re going to do this, score around the nut end with a scalpel or other very sharp blade to reduce the risk of lacquer flaking off the wood too.

Thanks, that was the plan. I did the same when I took the nut off my SG Standard and it came off nice and cleanly. I did a neat job of fitting a new bone nut, only to then find out that perhaps I should have fitted a nylon one.

 

[Leee]

Yeah …
I’ve done Corian and Tusq.
I was surprised when I saw that @LtDave32 definitely prefers nylon. On his advice, that’s what I’ll use next time.

 

[Leee]

useful information,.. with personal experience to back it.

Yeah, Mud, I got sidetracked and didn’t finish my response to your kind words.

I’m a curious guy.
So I’m always wondering why this and why not that, especially on guitars.

And answers can be tough to come by, even with the Inter-Webz nowadays.

I always loved the Billy Joel line:
“There’s a new band in town, but you can’t get the sound from a story in a magazine - aimed at your average teen.”

Same with guitars, going back to being a small-town kid in the seventies.
Reading magazines, scouring album liner notes, and studying every pic of every cool guitar player only reveals so much.

Eventually I made the acquaintance of a few killer guitar players, and I picked their brain - with only limited success.

You gotta get these guitars in your hands to understand them. And you gotta work on ‘em to see what makes them good or great.

So I started buying cheap guitars.
Making them work.
Asking advice from smart people, and paying for their work when it was beyond me.
Ain’t afraid of spending a little money.
(Sometimes I get it all back)

Now what I was seeing on the Inter-Webz began to make more sense.
I had a better understanding of why this guy plays these guitars and that guy plays those guitars.
I heard the differences with Clapton on a Les Paul, a 335, or on a Strat.
Jimmy on a Les Paul or a Tele.

Started buying P-90 guitars.
Discovered serious magic.
Why hasn’t anyone put them in a Strat?
So I did it.
20 years later, I still love that guitar.

Floyd Rose is something I don’t need.
A Bigsby is cool as hell!

Realized that I LOVE semi-hollow guitars.
I have big hands, but I prefer slim necks.
Some people’s preferences aren’t logical - they simply stay with what they know.
So on and on and on …

I ain’t skeered of any bolt-on mods.
Sometimes they don’t work as I hoped.
I’ve seen plenty of broken and butchered guitars that were repaired and turned out great.

And most importantly - if I don’t know the answer, I’m the first to admit it.

I’ve developed my own preferences, and I try to keep a sense of humor about it.
So putting the same hardware on my Junior that I love on all my other Les Pauls seemed like a fun idea.
And it WORKS.

When any of you get tired of the cheapo half-assed compromise of a Junior’s wrap tailpiece - just know that a TOM solves all of those problems.

And the reactions it generates from the purists are priceless.

 

[bigtimelp]

I have a 2020 jr also, really awesome guitar. The nut on yours just has lacquer on some of it, normal. I replaced mine with a tusq nut and added Tonepros ss1 locking studs and Mojoaxe 50s compensated tailpiece- no lean and better intonation.

 

[mudface]

Yeah, Mud, I got sidetracked and didn’t finish my response to your kind words.

I’m a curious guy.
So I’m always wondering why this and why not that, especially on guitars.

And answers can be tough to come by, even with the Inter-Webz nowadays.

I always loved the Billy Joel line:
“There’s a new band in town, but you can’t get the sound from a story in a magazine - aimed at your average teen.”

Same with guitars, going back to being a small-town kid in the seventies.
Reading magazines, scouring album liner notes, and studying every pic of every cool guitar player only reveals so much.

Eventually I made the acquaintance of a few killer guitar players, and I picked their brain - with only limited success.

You gotta get these guitars in your hands to understand them. And you gotta work on ‘em to see what makes them good or great.

So I started buying cheap guitars.
Making them work.
Asking advice from smart people, and paying for their work when it was beyond me.
Ain’t afraid of spending a little money.
(Sometimes I get it all back)

Now what I was seeing on the Inter-Webz began to make more sense.
I had a better understanding of why this guy plays these guitars and that guy plays those guitars.
I heard the differences with Clapton on a Les Paul, a 335, or on a Strat.
Jimmy on a Les Paul or a Tele.

Started buying P-90 guitars.
Discovered serious magic.
Why hasn’t anyone put them in a Strat?
So I did it.
20 years later, I still love that guitar.

Floyd Rose is something I don’t need.
A Bigsby is cool as hell!

Realized that I LOVE semi-hollow guitars.
I have big hands, but I prefer slim necks.
Some people’s preferences aren’t logical - they simply stay with what they know.
So on and on and on …

I ain’t skeered of any bolt-on mods.
Sometimes they don’t work as I hoped.
I’ve seen plenty of broken and butchered guitars that were repaired and turned out great.

And most importantly - if I don’t know the answer, I’m the first to admit it.

I’ve developed my own preferences, and I try to keep a sense of humor about it.
So putting the same hardware on my Junior that I love on all my other Les Pauls seemed like a fun idea.
And it WORKS.

When any of you get tired of the cheapo half-assed compromise of a Junior’s wrap tailpiece - just know that a TOM solves all of those problems.

And the reactions it generates from the purists are priceless.

We share similar experiences,.. I may have been a bit younger when I was experimenting with modding guitars and amplifiers,.. I have destroyed a handful of nice amps,.. and luckily not kill my self in the process.

I also met and learned from some amazing players,.. my Dad had Freddy Heart at the house a couple of times. My Dad knew Marty Robbins and Buck Owens from the Bakersfield days.

My dad was a pretty good country picker on his own. He just suffered a disastrous left hand injury that left his middle finger stiff and straight,.. couldn’t bend it. Still played extremely well that way.

I also had a great guitar instructor when I was young,.. He also created his own instruments,. Like a solid body electric cello,..

So my knowledge of guitars and playing them was rooted very early in my life,.. I was lucky, in a “Forest Gump” kind of way.

 

[Leee]

I have destroyed a handful of nice amps,.. and luckily not kill my self in the process.

I got buzzed by a silver-faced Fender in junior high school.
A buddy of mine got the worst of it.
And by far!

He carried his dad’s 60s Tele and amp out to the concrete patio and plugged it in.
Just because.

Put the strap over his head, powered it up, touched the strings.
It lit his ass up.

He was a joker, but the look on his face was unmistakable. He was frozen, petrified.

“It SHOCKED me!!!”

What?

“The guitar shocked me!!!!”

He was clearly in distress.
I reached over and touched the strings lightly - because that’s what any 13 year-old boy would do - and got nothing.

“Serious? NOTHING?”

No. Nothing.
He cautiously touched the bridge, and it lit his ass up again.

I looked down at the outdoor outlet he plugged into, to see if that was it, and realized the difference.
I was wearing shoes - he was bare feet.

I reached for the guitar again, and got a little tingle this time. Guess he ain’t kidding after all.

I felt obligated to save his ass at this point, so I yanked the power cord outta the outlet and then gently lifted the guitar strap over his head.
He was white as a ghost.

We’re done playing now.

Carried everything back inside, while he worried that his dad was gonna kill him for damaging his guitar.

Funny thing - I asked him the next day what his dad said about it.
Surprisingly - NOTHING.

How odd, eh?

I realized many years later that his dad knew exactly what happened, and wasn’t surprised.
He was a smart dude.
He knew.

Maybe the kid will leave his shit alone?

 

[mudface]

I got buzzed by a silver-faced Fender in junior high school.
A buddy of mine got the worst of it.
And by far!

He carried his dad’s 60s Tele and amp out to the concrete patio and plugged it in.
Just because.

Put the strap over his head, powered it up, touched the strings.
It lit his ass up.

He was a joker, but the look on his face was unmistakable. He was frozen, petrified.

“It SHOCKED me!!!”

What?

“The guitar shocked me!!!!”

He was clearly in distress.
I reached over and touched the strings lightly - because that’s what any 13 year-old boy would do - and got nothing.

“Serious? NOTHING?”

No. Nothing.
He cautiously touched the bridge, and it lit his ass up again.

I looked down at the outdoor outlet he plugged into, to see if that was it, and realized the difference.
I was wearing shoes - he was bare feet.

I reached for the guitar again, and got a little tingle this time. Guess he ain’t kidding after all.

I felt obligated to save his ass at this point, so I yanked the power cord outta the outlet and then gently lifted the guitar strap over his head.
He was white as a ghost.

We’re done playing now.

Carried everything back inside, while he worried that his dad was gonna kill him for damaging his guitar.

Funny thing - I asked him the next day what his dad said about it.
Surprisingly - NOTHING.

How odd, eh?

I realized many years later that his dad knew exactly what happened, and wasn’t surprised.
He was a smart dude.
He knew.

Maybe the kid will leave his shit alone?

I had one grenade in the band room during practice one cold night in 1980,.. It was a Yamaha high powered stand alone power amp,.. professional grade sound reinforcement,.. bragged as bulletproof.

It was part of our bass players rig,.. he had all the A list brand components,.. He asked me to bridge it for him,.. that way he could get 1400 watts mono. I also did some creative speaker impedance wiring. 18 inch folded horns and multiple 15s in single cabs.

Well,… My math was wrong.

There was foil confetti floating around the room as well as a huge explosion that sent metal shrapnel into the ceiling tiles and then the total room blackout except for the flames erupting from the amp.

It sounded glorious just before,.. the hair on my arms were flowing like wheat in a field,..

 

[moreles]

Juniors are great, but the OEM hardware is not, and the sloppy stud placement (factory) is not. Even 100% factory stock juniors can have tippy bridges (thanks to the ridiculously overlarge gap on the studs, where the bridge slides into place and made worse when you have to screw in the positioning screws a lot to get the bridge intonated reasonably) and there is zero excuse for that. It's just sloppy manufacturing. It's also quite common to have the bridge studs positioned incorrectly -- I guess because you can supposedly correct this with the intonation screw. Many owners do no better than the factory when installing aftermarket bridges, sometimes using ones which are intonated for a wound G when they are actually going to be using a modern set of strings with an unwound G. Or using a bridge intonated for "straight" stud mounting on a guitar with staggered studs. Or the reverse. This often takes a truly stripped and simple guitar and despite good intentions, making it a real mess. It's not hard to get all of this squared away quite simply, and the result can be a glorious guitar with the parts all snug and secure and transmtting string vibration wonderfully well. Apparently, though, even this is beyond many owners, so make sure you have really got the correct parts and that they really fit together well. It certainly sucks to have to replace basic parts, but in the case of a Junior, it's worth it.

 

[searswashere]

Yeah, I just got a new one of those and I’m gonna order an adjustable bridge for it because it’s really far back just to get it initiated

If it’s intonated, being far back shouldnt be a problem unless you plan to go up a few string gauges imo.

 

[Kodapaul]

Yes sir! I run a set of Daddario 10-46 nickels and looking at the nut I think someone replaced this nut at some point and or did some crappy nut slotting. I’m going to be able to go up a a gauge or two on the EAD
52-42-32 the slots are there.
I will at some point go to the Mill City bridge,not the studfinder the other one.
But temporary fix was a stainless Eclip under the stock saddle and the lean is gone. Just for now! It doesn’t look great but it does work.

 

[Leee]

It certainly sucks to have to replace basic parts, but in the case of a Junior, it's worth it.

So we are in agreement?

 

[Kodapaul]

YUP!!!!!