Camstone Posted August 31, 2005 Posted August 31, 2005 Hi Guys,The three hole Duotone showed up that I snagged on eBay last week. I got to play it on stage last night and fell in love. What an awesome combination!! Now I can keep my Taylor at home and quit beating the %$&*@ out of it.Anyway, when the guitar arrived, I noticed that the action was very strange. The radius of the bridge saddles was much "rounder" than the radius of the fretboard. So the E strings were where they needed to be, but the middle four strings were jacked up off the board. I filed the saddles down quite a bit and was able to get the action to match my Studio.Has anyone else here experienced the same thing? I am somwhat surprised that it would have left the factory this way. The A and B strings were probably twice as high as they should have been (at the twelfth fret), and the G and D strings were WAY up in the air. The guitar is now perfect and arrived with no visible signs that it had ever been played!!! WOW!As soon as the sun comes out (I'm in Seattle) I'll snap some pics.Thanks again for your input last week and help in finding this amazing instrument.
silentman Posted August 31, 2005 Posted August 31, 2005 How the hell did you file a duotone bridge without ruining it?
Camstone Posted August 31, 2005 Author Posted August 31, 2005 The pickup saddle assembly comes out of the wooden tailpiece by pulling two black pins that are at each end of the saddles. It appears that this is the very same bridge/pickup that Ovation uses, yes? I guess that would make sense with the Kaman connection.I taped off the wooden tailpiece so that the bridge assembly would sit outside of it, and carefully filed either side of the saddles to maintain their peak. The material acts like it is bone, but it's probably some kind of hard plastic. The piezo pickup is under the white saddles, between them and the black metal "gutter" that the saddles sit in, so I didn't think that there was much of a chance of damaging the pickup. It was fairly easy and took about a half an hour.I'm just surprised that it was this way. When I first took it out of the case, I could tell it was wrong. I sighted down the neck and saw that the nut and frets were fairly flat, but the bridge was not. Has anyone that owns or has worked on a Duotone experienced this???
pesocaster Posted August 31, 2005 Posted August 31, 2005 Seattle? Cool... another NW Guy..... I'm down in Gig Harbor... there are a few of us up here.... Welcome!Cool score on the Duotone....
Eric Weston Posted August 31, 2005 Posted August 31, 2005 I did almost exactly the same thing, I used a 14" radius block to gauge how far to take the saddle down in the middle- I also made a new shim for under the whole assembly....I like the wound strings a little higher so I can beat on 'em a bit without fret buzz. It's one of my favorites for gigs. edit to thank BCR Greg for opening my eyes to the obvious
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.