Hi there, I got my new guitar this week finally, its my first Ibanez and I'll be honest Im a newbie when it comes to guitars but determined so thanks to a guide I found on this site I understand the bridge now. Here's a couple of shots of it(sorry about the jars on the second shot lol), btw Ive started polishing the body every now and with furniture polish(mr sheen with beeswax) is that all good?:
When I first recieved it I tried tuning it at the neck like a dummy and broke the top string, so I sent it in for a set up(embaressing when he told me) because there was fretbuzz aside from not being able to get it in tune. I also told him action might need sorting because of that fretbuzz. I got it back home and noticed the strings were so taut that even for me (not knowing how to change my strat set up when I moved to 11s last year and I just assumed it was normal with those strings and stuck with it) it was pretty difficult to play(maybe I should have just left it as he set it up?). So I decided to see if I could change it a bit as I wasnt convinced he'd done a thorough job(it didnt appear he'd altered the springs even though I gave him a set of 11s to do it with unless its not always necessary?), and thats when I had to come find this place lol, well I had to learn sooner or later right?
I found a guide one of the members here did on the ZR particularly helpful, if only I had checked before I messed with it because then I could have known by checking if the bridge was parallel if he'd done a good job on it or not. So reading the manual that came with it, I tried changing the action along with getting the bridge level with the body and Im not sure either are as good as they could be:
The Bridge isnt totally flush with the body(but not far off as you can see... took me quite a while..) I take it the bottom ridge isnt suppose to be visable from that angle(or is it?):
It that correct atleast?
That was trial and error took lots of attemps with the tuning raising the bridge gradually and the strings feeling more tension if you crank up the springs(meaning the tuning went up and the pegs were on their last threads because I had to back them off that much... which didnt seem right to me), its still pretty confusing really but I found starting with the bridge as low as possible the solution. The hardest part was getting the strings to slack off when the bridge was high without much spring force(how is this done because I was wondering what was happening it seemed like the guy who put the springs on cut them too short or something).
I wanted to fix the action too because I felt it should be easier to play than my other guitar, so I checked the manual and it said 0.5mm treble side and 2.0mm bass side. So I turned them both and measured best I could with a standard ruler but then the tuning changed again and then when I was back in tune it seemed I had to change the string height again. Theres so much to balance any tips on sure fire ways to go about setting the action would be appreciated. When I finally thought I had set the heights on both sides just right and got it in tune at the same time with the
bridge angle as in the picture... I noticed two things:
a) First was I looked under those nuts you turn and theres a washer underneath each of them, they appear to be buckled, Im hoping thats not a big problem(perhaps I went to far on way string to get them set) and that its fairly easy to replace them without taking the strings off and what have you.
b) I picked it up to see how it felt to play with the new string heights and it seems the top 3 string(treble) especially the top one make very little noise above the 12 fret... what happened? Im so frustrated I thought Id measured the string heights to the ones in the manual close enough top string is just above half a mm and the bottom string is looking to me almost dead on 2mm(although it seems not to have the same problem on that side).
Top string here(probably cant see it but I tried to take a pic):
What should I do then? I cant afford to be paying that guy again so soon, infact Id rather learn myself and beable to know what is acceptable or not.
edit: Sorry if this post is hard to follow(just typed out what came to mind), but its late I will edit it tomorrow if need be.
