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Black Beauty II (I have already dated Black Beauty – read earlier posts) was handed over in my care with the complaint of having an excruciatingly high action. I checked the usual culprits: the relief in the neck and whether the bridge was lifting. The bridge was, thankfully, stuck solid but the relief in the neck left a lot to be desired.

While inspecting the guitar – not a known name – a few things were highlighted. The plastic nut and saddle wouldn’t be doing any good to the sound of the instrument; the shoe-string tie of the guitar strap around the headstock was putting undue stress on the neck – it would have to go; the strings were dead – had been so since long; the hardware was all tarnished and a bit loose; and that the instrument in general was in need of real TLC (Bring out that vacuum cleaner, somebody)!

Also, the fretboard and bridge were dryer than tinder wood and the frets themselves were tarnished with minor pitting (indentations where strings struck the frets). As I inspected the guitar body, there was a chip on the outer extremity of the lower bout which exposed a bit of raw wood – probably caused by an accidental banging into something.

As I continued to go through the instrument under magnification and with a fine-tooth comb, I found the pickguard was lifting from the tip nearest to the fretboard. I pulled it off completely; the idea was to clean the pickguard and the area on the top where it was stuck, completely of the old glue and glue it back on.

If only things in practise were as easy as they appeared in theory! The glue around the periphery of the pickguard was dry and flaky. As I tried scraping it off, it left scratch marks like those when you scratch the painted side of a mirror: with light shining through! That being that I chucked the old pickguard and decided to put on a new one.

And then followed an unending experiment with solutions and solvents to take the drying glue off the top without harming the finish. Since you will screech in horror if I told you what finally worked, I won’t tell you! And a swanky new pickguard took the place of the old, cheap one.

 

Then I turned my attention to the hardware. With some magic lotion and lots of elbow grease the tuning machines shone like new.

I took off the shoe-string tie and prepared to install a proper strap-pin on the heel of the guitar. Drilling the hole to accept the screw of the strap-pin at that sweet spot is a tricky proposition. This one came out just fine.

Instinctively, I looked at the strap-pin at the bottom of the guitar. It was tarnished and beaten. So, I changed both, shiny and new.

Turning my attention to the fretboard, I scraped it clean, applied a double dose of nutrients – as also to the bridge – and recrowned and polished the frets. The end result was, indeed, pleasing to the eyes.

 

In earlier posts, I have failed to properly explain the process of replacing a plastic nut and saddle with bone elements. Let me set the record straight with this post.

First of all, what is the need to replace plastic parts? Plastic is cheap and easily available. Most guitar manufacturers (barring the biggest names in the business) put in the cheapest stuff possible to increase their profit margin – and that goes for everything that is your guitar – the wood, tuning machines, strings, nut and saddle. The plastic nut and saddle serve the purpose but when compared to bone, the volume and quality of sound is not even a patch.

This is due to the fact that bone is a denser material. Denser the material, greater will be the transfer of sound, and lesser the loss of sound while transferring from string to saddle/nut to bridge/neck.

After bone, a denser material is something called Tusq. It is synthetic but I won’t vouch for the quality of sound it produces. While I don’t like the sound from Tusq elements, for it lacks the mellow warmth of bone, many people do prefer it.

So…the plastic elements are taken out and bone elements put in. Hardly as easy as that! These bone elements are also mass produced and need to be customised to fit a particular instrument. For each instrument, the dimensions of these parts – like thickness and height – are different, which needs to be dialled in before these elements can work the best that they can with the instrument.

So, the nut was shaved down – both in height and thickness – as was the saddle.

Also, the nut slots had to be lowered to get the action on the guitar to an acceptable level. Once that was done, a carbon jelly was introduced in the slots so that the strings wouldn’t catch in the slots, while tuning up or down.

The angle that the strings make coming out of the bridge holes to the top of the saddle also has a big impact on the volume and quality of sound. With a tall saddle, strings can come straight out of the holes and the angle created is good, exerting a lot of pressure on the saddle, forcing it down into the bridge, which helps maxamise sound transfer and minimises loss of sound.

With a shaved-down saddle (to compensate for high action), the string slot has to be extended a bit so that that angle is created. The angle thus created, exerts pressure on the saddle, which, in turn, helps in a solid transfer of sound.

And finally, Black Beauty II’s coat was given a proper rubdown. See it gleam in health and happiness! Happy to see this beauty turn out the way it did!

If your remember, last time, I had said how the bridgeplate was a problem in this guitar. After much thought, I shaped two pieces of wood, stuck them together and then stuck and clamped them adjacent to the bridgeplate.

The idea was that this would only lend strength and support to the not-so-stout bridgeplate, helping hold the top of the guitar somewhat in place once the strings start pulling it up.

On a more expensive instrument, I would have suggested to the owner that a Platemate would be the way to go about it. A Platemate is a thin brass plate that is stuck to the bridgeplate and takes all the pull of the strings, protecting the bridgeplate.

Then came the turn of glueing and clamping the bridge itself.

The glue flows and moves into every nook and cranny, and once it cures, it forms a solid bond. But, in the process, the bridge holes also get filled with glue and get blocked so well that you can’t just poke through with bridgepins. The solution, then, is to open the holes using a drill and right-sized bit.

With the holes opened, and before strings came on, it was the right time to show a bit of love to the dried out fretboard. I had cleaned it earlier of all the gunk collected on it over its three-odd year life.

The fretboard scraped clean, the frets were crowned and polished and then the fretboard was given a drink of boiled linseed oil. So thirsty was the fretboard that the oil disappeared in minutes and I had to apply a second coat, which lent it a healthy sheen to the fretboard.

Then came the turn of putting in the saddle and the nut and setting up the guitar to play as perfectly as it should. Things to take into consideration is the gauge of strings used, the neck angle, etc. The nut requires a bit carbon grease in the slots for the strings to ride in them without getting stuck, or posing tuning issues.

The saddle needed a shave to get the action just right without any string buzz. An added consideration was that Snow White was an electro-acoustic beauty and thus, the under-saddle piezo pick-up had to be accommodated for.

That done, it was time to give the strings a stretch to get them used to the tension that they would be put under.

After stretching and tuning the strings a couple of times, it was finally turn to give the guitar body a good rubdown and polish.

Ain’t she a beauty?

This neatly finished guitar with abalone binding came in with the (apparent)complaint of a high action. It needed new strings too.

Simple enough? Spoken too soon!

As soon as I hear high action, my eyes automatically go to two places: the relief in the neck and whether the bridge is lifting under string tension.

And that was just the beginning of the list of woes ailing this pretty guitar. As I looked, I noticed that the spot where the ‘G’ string rode the saddle had been chewed into.

So, off came the strings and the saddle out of the bridge…not quite in one piece!

Then it was the turn of the bridge to come off completely; for the spot on the top where the bridge sat, to be cleaned thoroughly, and then for the bridge to be glued on, clamped and left undisturbed for at least 48 hours.

A few right-sized palette knives inserted in the right places helped pop off the bridge.

The bridge came off without much fuss but as it did, I saw clearly what I thought I had seen: a crack, or at least the beginnings of one, right along its centre.

Also, notice the bridge footprint on the top of the guitar. At least a millimetre or two was without glue. You can see it reflected in this next photograph of the bridge flipped over.

But as I looked at the bridge area on the top of the guitar, it seemed oddly misshapen. A simple ruler proved me right and that my eyes weren’t playing tricks.

And I knew that that could be caused only due to one problem: if the bridgeplate (a piece of wood stuck right under the bridge, whose job is to take most of the stress of the strings pulling up at the top and keep the top stable and straight) was weak, splintered or badly cut. Bridgeplates are particularly made out of hardwoods like rosewood, walnut, ebony and mahogany to take all that strain of the strings pulling up.

In this case, the bridgeplate was badly cut and made from silly wood. A bridgeplate made from ice-cream sticks would have provided greater support! Here is what I saw inside:

The flat piece of wood with six holes in a row is what was masquerading as a bridgeplate. No wonder the poor top was in misery.

What followed was a hot-water bath for the bridge area on the top and then clamping it under a block of wood for 24 hours.

When I took off the clamps, there was hardly any difference. So, while I thought about another way around the problem, I began to work on other parts of the guitar.

First came the cleaning of the area of the top where the bridge would sit: cleaning it of old glue, lacquer (varnish) so that once glued, the bridge would sit tight and never budge from its place again. An Xacto knife and two bridgepins helped me mark the boundary of the bridge.

If you look closely at the last photograph, you will be able to see how much varnish needed to be taken off all around for bare (bridge) wood to be in complete contact with bare (top) wood.

We went to work with a chisel and a few grits of sandpaper. Just like this:

That cleaned, I went to work on the underside of the bridge itself. The cleaned up bridge presented another problem.

The crack that I saw on the top of the bridge and thought was only superficial, actually ran through the bridge.

Meanwhile, the fretboard had enough DNA on it to map the family tree of the owner; the frets needed crowning and polishing, and the tuning machines needed to be worked on too.

What I did with the bridgeplate and what were the hits and misses till I handed the guitar over to the owner: coming soon.

 

YES! I know I have written about how to go about choosing a guitar, but I am being forced to write about it again with a special focus on children, thanks largely due to the sudden flood of queries from parents.

FOR SMALLER CHILDREN

What size to buy

The ideal age to start learning any instrument would be six years, once the child has attained a degree of motor control. The ideal size for the child would be a smaller guitar – referred to in the guitar industry as a 3/4^th guitar. But there is a certain shelf life to the instrument because just as the child outgrows his/her shoes and jumpers, so will he/she outgrow the instrument too.

 

Not that he/she won’t be able to play the instrument but there are two scenarios here: a) either he/she is so comfortable with the small-sized instrument that he/she finds it rather cumbersome playing a regular-sized instrument, or, b) they are so cramped for room that they are terribly uncomfortable playing the small instrument.

So, the downside of buying a small instrument is that in the end IT HAS TO GO! It might adorn a wall but will be seldom played. If there is a younger sibling/cousin/friend the economics of buying a 3/4^th guitar work out that much better.

A word of caution though, A TOY GUITAR IS NOT A 3/4^th GUITAR!

What type – steel-string, nylon string or electric?

 

The steel-string guitar is more for accompaniment – to sing along to – while the nylon-string guitar is more a specialist classical music instrument, meant to sound finger-picked notes that make the basic melody of the song. It is ideal for Western Classical Music.

While the steel-string instrument is generally played with a pick or plectrum – never overruling the fingers – it is a SIN to even lay a pick or plectrum on a classical guitar, which is (or should be) played only by the fingers.

 

There are basic differences in how the steel-string and the nylon-string guitars are constructed, which dictate the way each is played.

The sound thus produced from a steel-string guitar is happier and peppier, while the sound of the classical guitar is softer, mellower, meant to be consumed personally.

The electric guitar has its own image, personality and points to consider.

 

In the end, choosing a guitar is for you and the child to decide together.

What price range?

This is something that I leave parents and guardians to decide, for it is they who will have to shell out the moolah. It is not wise to buy a really cheap, or a really expensive guitar; for the simple reason that a cheap instrument may not last your child’s childhood!

Also, it is likely to put off your youngster for various reasons like comfort, sound quality, etc, etc. Never, think that your brat won’t know the difference. They’re into YouTube as much as they are into Cola, and they listen to stuff!

Expensive stuff: not worth it, for, in the end IT HAS TO GO!

It is then wise to walk the middle line and try and find the best instrument that you possibly can in the middle range.

FOR CHILDREN 11 YEARS OR OLDER

Full size! No question about it. Children this age have grown enough to be able to handle a full-size guitar. If they are facing a bit of a problem forming and holding chords, it will disappear within a few months as their hands dial in the ‘stretch’ required to hold chords and shapes.

The more they practise, the more they will acclimatise to the instrument, the sooner their playing will become ‘clean’ (chords and notes ringing out clear).

And if it wasn’t evident from these couple of paragraphs at which age the switch from a 3/4^th to a full-size guitar should be made, it is age 11!

And since it is a full-size guitar that you are looking to buy, all the recommendations I made in the earlier piece, become considerations.
Read that piece here:

Choosing a guitar

Happy New Year, good people (even you baddies!)!!
May all of you have the best year yet!
My New Year resolution: not to miss my date with the Lucknow Guitar Garage, ever again!!

But without ado, let’s talk about saddles and their slots. But first…