Weird sh*t my friend did to my Standard —this is new to me!

[zorrow]

A close friend of mine kept one my Standards for a while, so he adjusted it and tuned it to his tastes.

Now, this is new to me:

The high E, the B and the G strings are now wound “the wrong way”, so the machine heads turn clockwise to rise the pitch, and counterclockwise to lower it. So weird!

Of course, I have seen and played many guitars featuring six-in-line headstocks, but this is the first time I see the strings configured this way. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Is this something some of you guys also do?

[DaveH]

No, but I get why he did it. Or at least what he was trying to accomplish.

[zorrow]

1 minute ago, DaveH said:

No, but I get why he did it. Or at least what he was trying to accomplish.

I haven’t asked him yet, because I just noticed, but I think he was trying to keep the high E string inside the area of the headstock. But from a functional standpoint, I don’t know if there’s any other reason. Why do you think he did so? 

[Dave Scepter]

He's keeping the strings as straight "over the nut" as possible 

[kizanski]

1 hour ago, Dave Scepter said:

He's keeping the strings as straight "over the nut" as possible 

This.  
 

Seen it done many times.  

Edited Wednesday at 12:26 AM by kizanski

[zorrow]

2 hours ago, Dave Scepter said:

He's keeping the strings as straight "over the nut" as possible 

WOW! That’s what he said —asked him few minutes ago. This is totally new to me. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[beezerboy]

what an asshole...

[soli'd]

I thought something was going to be jacked up, instead, we learned something today.  

[kizanski]

Some will swear that this is the right way to string up an Explorer.

Funny story (at least to me):

My brother's band was playing as CBGB's back around 1981, 82.
The guitar player only had one guitar (imagine???), a white/creme '79 Les Paul Custom and asked his brother if he could borrow one of his, as he had several.

He ends up borrowing his '76 Explorer (a guitar that I would end up purchasing many years later) which was strung up as above.

Somewhere in the middle of their set, Chris (the guitar player, who went by the stage name Ivan D. Terrible Bastard) grabs the Explorer, plugs in and hears it's slightly out of tune. Of course he tries to tune it, but because of the dim stage lighting he can't see that the plain strings are wound "backwards" and keeps trying to tune.
It doesn't make sense.  The more he tunes it, the worse it gets.

Now the crowd at CBGBs is getting a little impatient.  This is the punk crowd after all, so I hand him back his Les Paul, which I had tuned up in the interim and he went back about his business.

Days later he's telling his brother that "there's something wrong with this Explorer," recounting the tuning issues in front of the crowd and his brother just laughed his ass off.

[tommy p]

I get the idea behind this, but does anyone remember when Paul Gilbert used to run his strings into random posts?  Like the low E would be on the G post, the B on the D, etc. just all mixed up?  I couldn't find a picture of it but I think it was him.

[Jim85IROC]

what's interesting to me is that the nut appears to be cut with straight nut slots.  That also looks like an off the shelf pre-cut nut with very deep nut slots.  I'm no USA Standard expert, but what I've generally seen in the ones that I've paid attention to in the past was a nut that was specifically cut with angled slots to deal with the angle of the string pull.

Here's a 4 digit Standard on Reverb right now that has the nut cut with angled slots:

 

Here's an 05 that appears to be cut the same way.  This pic is a bit washed out so it's hard to tell, but that's how it looks:

[kizanski]

5 minutes ago, Jim85IROC said:

what's interesting to me is that the nut appears to be cut with straight nut slots.  That also looks like an off the shelf pre-cut nut with very deep nut slots.  I'm no USA Standard expert, but what I've generally seen in the ones that I've paid attention to in the past was a nut that was specifically cut with angled slots to deal with the angle of the string pull.

Here's a 4 digit Standard on Reverb right now that has the nut cut with angled slots:

 

Here's an 05 that appears to be cut the same way.  This pic is a bit washed out so it's hard to tell, but that's how it looks:

Nut slots aside, look how much better the 4-digit headstock looks.

And if you notice, both guitars are strung up with the plain strings "backwards." Even the D string on the 4-digit.

[Jim85IROC]

1 minute ago, kizanski said:

Nut slots aside, look how much better the 4-digit headstock looks.

And if you notice, both guitars are strung up with the plain strings "backwards." Even the D string on the 4-digit.

I do like the more slender early headstock.  Nice catch on the unwound strings being backwards here too.  For fun I checked some of the pics in my copy of "The Ultimate" and they seem to all be strung conventionally.

Not only does it help with string angle, but I think it also looks better when they're strong "wrong".  On my import Standard, the high E string is floating out there in space and not over the headstock.  I think it looks stupid, but I also don't want to deal with backwards tuning on one guitar.

 

[soli'd]

18 minutes ago, Jim85IROC said:

what's interesting to me is that the nut appears to be cut with straight nut slots.  That also looks like an off the shelf pre-cut nut with very deep nut slots.  I'm no USA Standard expert, but what I've generally seen in the ones that I've paid attention to in the past was a nut that was specifically cut with angled slots to deal with the angle of the string pull.

Here's a 4 digit Standard on Reverb right now that has the nut cut with angled slots:

 

Here's an 05 that appears to be cut the same way.  This pic is a bit washed out so it's hard to tell, but that's how it looks:

Weirder still is that someone apparently photoshopped out the offending high-E string overhanging the void in the 4-digit pic.

[kizanski]

7 minutes ago, Jim85IROC said:

I think it looks stupid, but I also don't want to deal with backwards tuning on one guitar.

I agree. That's why I never did it either.

 

1 minute ago, soli'd said:

Weirder still is that someone apparently photoshopped out the offending high-E string overhanging the void in the 4-digit pic.

...and poorly.

Edited Wednesday at 08:12 PM by kizanski

[soli'd]

8 minutes ago, kizanski said:

...and poorly.

Anything dumb that's worth doing is worth doing poorly. 

[zorrow]

10 hours ago, soli'd said:

I thought something was going to be jacked up, instead, we learned something today.  

Unintentional click bait 🤷🏻‍♂️

[zorrow]

5 hours ago, Jim85IROC said:

what's interesting to me is that the nut appears to be cut with straight nut slots.  That also looks like an off the shelf pre-cut nut with very deep nut slots.  I'm no USA Standard expert, but what I've generally seen in the ones that I've paid attention to in the past was a nut that was specifically cut with angled slots to deal with the angle of the string pull.

Here's a 4 digit Standard on Reverb right now that has the nut cut with angled slots:

 

Here's an 05 that appears to be cut the same way.  This pic is a bit washed out so it's hard to tell, but that's how it looks:

I find it chaotic having some strings wound differently. I care much more about consistency and functionality than about how the guitar looks.

By the way, I love both headstocks, but I like the chunkier headstock of the more recent Standards better. It’s more Hamer, less Gibson, and looks sturdier to me. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[kizanski]

1 minute ago, zorrow said:

…I like the chunkier headstock of the more recent Standards better.

So you’re the one. 

[Dave Scepter]

52 minutes ago, zorrow said:

I find it chaotic having some strings wound differently. I care much more about consistency and functionality than about how the guitar looks.

Having those strings straight across the nut has absolutely NOTHING to do with looks 🙄

Edited yesterday at 01:57 AM by Dave Scepter

[zorrow]

15 hours ago, Dave Scepter said:

Having those strings straight across the nut has absolutely NOTHING to do with looks 🙄

I do get that. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Dave Scepter]

5 minutes ago, zorrow said:

I do get that. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Are you sure?.. cuz the weed in Florida is pretty potent 🤣