why arent tailpieces slammed anymore

[nauc]

i was lookin at my Beauty Of The Burst book last night, looks like all the tails are slammed all the way down. why arent they like that anymore? my 08 and 2016 both were/are raised. sup with that? different hardware?

 

[CB91710]

Newer bridges are not as strong as they once were and the downward tension of the strings tends to pull the radius out of the bridge.
I've seen some samples that were actually concave and cracked.
Top-wrapping, or lifting the tailstop helps to prevent this.
The actual solution is to replace the hardware with TonePros parts and put the stock parts in a tagged baggie for future re-sale.

 

[rockstar232007]

The neck angles on most modern (70s-present) LPs aren't consistent, so some bridges have to be slightly higher to get lower action. Thus the tailpieces have to be raised in order for the strings to clear the back of the bridge.

 

[PierM]

i was lookin at my Beauty Of The Burst book last night, looks like all the tails are slammed all the way down. why arent they like that anymore? my 08 and 2016 both were/are raised. sup with that? different hardware?

Not sure what guitar you have, but if they have a Nashville, the TP needs to be higher as the footprint of that bridge it's much larger than an ABR1, so if you keep the TP all the way down, the strings would hit the back of the bridge. Custom shop seems not caring of that, and they are shipping guitars with a Nashville bridge, with TP all down. At the USA plant they are raising the TP to avoid contact with the bridge.

Neck joint angles are also affecting the bridge height, so the less the angle, the lower the bridge, the lower the break angle, the less the pressure on the bridge, which means you can keep the TP all down without any problem.

And then it's also about personal preferences, there is people who doesn't give a damn to risk their bridge/posts to collapse, and there is people who cares, and raise the TP to remove some pressure.

As for the materials, I'm not sure I agree here. The ABR1 tends to not bend because the tiny posts are the weak spot there, so these are bending and collapsing against the body (I've seen plenty of vintage like that). The Nashville has WAY stronger posts, so all the pressure it's pushing against the bridge, which tends to bend along the years. Again, I've seen all kind of materials and brands bending and collapsing.

Many other reasons are possible here, there are not rules written in stones.

 

[CerebralGasket]

 

[mudface]

To be honest,... my personal opinion and 40 + years of playing Gibby's don't care about strings riding the back of the bridge.......... Wrap tail bridges like Juniors,... the strings are touch all around the bridge,... literately. No loss of tone to my ears......... but WTF do i know,.... i just slam all my TPs.

Though i had to replace a couple of bowed Nashvilles,....it does happen.

 

[1all's Pub]

The tailpiece was likely not slammed new from the factory back in 58-60. People just slammed them over time.

 

[jc2000]

Wrap the tail....

 

[MSB]

to some this is the new skinny jeans

 

[Ripgut]

Lower or raise your tailpiece enough to where you can stick a piece of paper in between the string and the back part of the bridge. The E strings. At around 11:00 he does this.

 

[scozz]

Wrap the tail....
View attachment 421593 View attachment 421593

Best advice imo is to completely remove the possibility of bridge collapse and strings touching the back of the bridge ,...by topwrapping. Some folks claim the strings touching the back of the bridge isn’t a problem, they may be right, I don’t know.

What I do know is that’s unwanted pressure on the bridge toward the neck and is not optimal.

 

[Christosterone]

2 words
bigs
bee

-Chris

 

[scozz]

2 words
bigs
bee

-Chris

Hahahaha!!! You’re too much Chris!

 

[jstarr823]

I’ve seen plenty of the new ABR equipped LPs fresh out of the box with the tailpiece decked.

 

[Guitpicky]

The TP was decked on my Custom at the factory. I asked about it when I called customer service to get some other info and they don't even consider it an issue. The reason they deck them is basically curb appeal. They get more confused calls about raising it than decking it. As far as playability or tuning go, they just assume you'll set it up the way you want.

No point in beating a dead horse for the umteenth time with another tail wrapping debate

 

[indeedido]

The internet says don't put it down all the way so people don't.

 

[bossaddict]

All of mine with TOMs are decked. As others have mentioned, might be an ABR thing.

 

[PierM]

Best advice imo is to completely remove the possibility of bridge collapse and strings touching the back of the bridge ,...by topwrapping. Some folks claim the strings touching the back of the bridge isn’t a problem, they may be right, I don’t know.

What I do know is that’s unwanted pressure on the bridge toward the neck and is not optimal.

Topwrap....I’ve been infected...

 

[bossaddict]

Topwrap....I’ve been infected...

When I first started playing (late '80s), I always had a thing for those Custom Lites. Really cool to see one all these years later!

 

[NorlinBlackBeauty]

Top wrapper for 40+ years. The original ToM never collapsed. I have a Faber locking bridge on the Lester now for tuning stability.