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January 2007
Posts: 672
Location: New South Wales, Australia | My wife came home from work with two guitars a couple of days ago. One of her workmates was going to donate them to the Salvation Army as her husband didn't play them. Apparently he bought them eighteen months ago and was going to learn but he lost interest pretty quickly. "Harder than he thought it would be," she said.
They're decent beginner guitars -- an Ashton electric (Australian made I think) and a Cort acoustic. Hardly been touched although her husband must be left handed as they were strung that way.
Since she was giving them away my wife offered her $200 for both of them. Also included was a couple of gig bags, couple of sets of no name strings, an assortment of picks and a 15w amp. Not bad for $200 and certainly good enough for my 14 year old son to begin his musical journey as he is showing some real interest in playing. Hadn't planned on buying him a guitar until he really got the bug and was happy for him to play with mine.
Anyway, I strung them both up last night and gave them a cleanup ready for Christmas day. They sound OK...action a bit high on both of them but nothing too outrageous. The problem is the bridge pins on the acoustic. They were REAL tight. Had to use pliers to pull them out and even that was an effort.
Do bridge pins come in different sizes? I'm wondering if these are the wrong ones for this guitar or is it just because they've never been touched that they're so tight. I thought about lubricating them but didn't want to take the risk of doing any damage to the guitar. Anything I could put on them to make them a little bit easier to work with? At least I don't have to worry about them popping out.
Merry Christmas everyone :) |
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Joined:
December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | I'd put a small drop of mineral oil (MO) on 'em. If MO is good for fretboards, then it should be fine for the pins. |
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December 2004
Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | What material are the bridge pins made of? |
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December 2003
Posts: 13996
Location: Upper Left USA | There are two sizes of Bridge Pins as well as there being the slotted and non-slotted. Mineral Oil or whatever Fretboard stuff you use will help.
www.stewmac.com
Has some good tutorials on the subject.
I like to slot the Bridge and install non-slotted pins which may take a little reaming to fit just so.
Most are made of Plastic and an easy upgrade is to use ebony, Koa or other hardwoods. |
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Joined:
January 2003
Posts: 1498
Location: San Bernardino, California | If you intend to lubricate the pins use paraffin, oil will make the problem worse (swells the wood). |
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June 2007
Posts: 3084
Location: Brisbane Australia | That's a very good deal Steve.
Both Guitars are foreign, probably Chinese made but certainly not junk.
Ashton are Australian design but made OS.
Are they slotted pins?
AJ |
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Joined:
January 2007
Posts: 672
Location: New South Wales, Australia | Yeah..slotted pins Jim. Both decent beginner guitars though. Been playing them both today. Might post a couple of pics later. the pins are plastic. |
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June 2006
Posts: 7307
Location: South of most, North of few | There's more than 2 sizes. Here\'s a chart |
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March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | The problem with using oil or parafin is that every particle of dust will get in there and stick, making a mess. I worked on a guitar one time where the guy had done that. YUCK! I would try to get smaller pins for it. |
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Joined:
May 2008
Posts: 4996
Location: Phoenix AZ | Wax? Oil?
Come on ... fix the problem, not the symptom. If the pins are too tight it's because they don't freaking fit correctly. For the best possible fit you need to get slightly oversized pins and hand sand them to get just the correct size and taper for a perfect fit. Sounds like the pins in question are just a tad oversized so that's a perfect place to start. And sand lightly until they fit correctly. It ain't that hard to do. |
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Joined:
November 2006
Posts: 3969
| exactly. and if you sand too much, use a toothpick to mix a drop of thick cya with the sanding dust then rub that around the pin hole in the bridge. let it dry before you reinstall the pin, tho. |
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Joined:
January 2009
Posts: 4535
Location: Flahdaw | Originally posted by G8r:
exactly. and if you sand too much, use a toothpick to mix a drop of thick cya with the sanding dust then rub that around the pin hole in the bridge. let it dry before you reinstall the pin, tho. And if you mix too thick of a drop of cya with the sanding dust, take a circular saw and gently shave off a millimeter at a time until fit is snug |
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Joined:
April 2006
Posts: 2491
Location: Copenhagen Denmark | Removing Bridge-Pins should be hard , .. that`s the idea , so , as to prevent them from " plopping -out " ..
.., use a bridge-pin extracting tool , sold in music-stores every where .. fer a li`ll money .. |
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tight bridge pins