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H-137 DC Bridge Pickup Height / String Clearance Issues


Larch

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Hi folks,

Anyone else with H-137s experience issues with the bridge dogear cover and string clearance?  Relief is perfect and the action is playable, but it could absolutely be lowered more if it weren't for the bridge P90 cover causing buzzing and dead notes, particularly when playing in the upper registers.  Haven't taken the bridge cover off yet, but since they're dogears I'm assuming there's little to no room for lowering the pickup.  

Is it Heritage's intention for these guitars to be played with high-ish action, or was my particular guitar made with an improper neck angle...?  Will post pictures later when I get home.

Am curious to hear your experiences.

Thanks.

 

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Is there a spacer between the body and the p90 dogear cover. If yes it can be removed and the pickup will be lower and accommodate the action being lower. If there is not a spacer then something is incorrect. The cover that is intended for the rhythm (neck) pickup is lower and could used instead of the bridge cover. It would also lower the pickup and could possibly be what should be there. 

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Hi folks.

Here -- see some photos.

No spacer. Pickup gets screwed directly into body.

treble side, fretted at last fret

bass side. fretted at last fret

action at 12th freth

As you can see, the action is not set too aggressive, yet the strings are dangerously close to the pickup cover when fretting above the ~15th fret.

I've placed a shim under the bridge side of the bridge pickup cover to tilt it forwards, hence the gap you'll see in some of the photos.  It helps a tiny bit.

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Looks like this one might be a good candidate for a professional set up. 

Is it possible the it's just the nut that's improperly cut.... that's actually fairly common issue umongst the pre 2018 Heritage guitars.

Let's see a full frontal of that bad slab!

(Just to be clear I'm referring to the H137!)

 

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The nut needed significant filing to fit 11 gauge strings.

The action before the 12th fret is impeccable -- not sure how changing that would help anything right near the bridge.

I'm mostly being really picky here.  The guitar is perfectly playable, I just wish it were the best it could be ... which it's currently not.

At this point I think the body needs some filling down where the pickups screw into the body, and I think I'll need to use a custom shim and cover set from Lollar to get the height of the cover just right.

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3 hours ago, Larch said:

At this point I think the body needs some filling down where the pickups screw into the body, and I think I'll need to use a custom shim and cover set from Lollar to get the height of the cover just right.

Could you file or sand off some of the pickup cover on it's bottom side and get it lower?  The pick up itself may not be the problem. 

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5 hours ago, High Flying Bird said:

Could you file or sand off some of the pickup cover on it's bottom side and get it lower?  The pick up itself may not be the problem. 

Bingo!

Easy enough!  Use some low tack double sided tape, put on a piece of sandpaper and slide the pickup rings back and fourth and shave a few mills off the pickup ring.

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