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Joe Bonamassa Forum → Joe's Guitars, Amps and Gear → top wrapping
I've got a question about top wrapping my strings . I just had my guitar set up and I forgot to tell the tech. to top wrap the strings can i just restring with the same gauge (10) and top wrap or will this change the set up ? Thanks , Paul
You might have to tweek a few things but it should still work. If you hear a horrible buzzing coming from the guitar your setup is most likely not right for that. You'll have to take your stop tail piece down to the body for sure, and you might have to adjust the ABR-1 Bridge but thats easy stuff.
Careful not to lower the tailpiece down too far...I have seen tops finish crack due to direct pressure from the tailpiece...usually the studs were too far in, but it happens.
I've gotten away with not having to touch my bridge and topwrapping without any problems. I'd tray that. Are the strings bottoming out on your bridge? or are you doing this for aesthetics?
I adjust my tailpiece height so that the break angle from the tailpiece to the bridge is the same as the nut to the tuning keys. The guitar just rings! Good luck.
I've gotten away with not having to touch my bridge and topwrapping without any problems. I'd tray that. Are the strings bottoming out on your bridge? or are you doing this for aesthetics?
I know alot of people are doing this for the ease of bending so I figured why not
More string contact on tailpiece and no compound string break angle (I think this is the real killer) on the back of the bridge. It feels easier to bend to me and just smoother.
I tired it both ways and never really had too many problems. I like it better straight through I think because my LP buzzed a bit more when top wrapping. But since I saw Bonamassa back in October last year with a Bigsby on his 58' reissue thats what I've moved to. All my friends say its wild to hear a Les paul wabble like it does!
You might want to try 11s if you're top wrapping.
I have 11-48s and tune a half step down. Top wrapped with a slightly higher action than normal, about 2mm at 12th fret on the low E, to reduce any buzz. I like the strings to fight back a bit, sounds weird but I hate the feeling with light strings, my vibrato turns into bends 
I tired it both ways and never really had too many problems. I like it better straight through I think because my LP buzzed a bit more when top wrapping. But since I saw Bonamassa back in October last year with a Bigsby on his 58' reissue thats what I've moved to. All my friends say its wild to hear a Les paul wabble like it does!
Wabble ??? 
Whass that then ??
I think thats webbles last name 
With the bigsby on and using it the sound sounds like the pitch goes up and down like a strat and my friends just thought that was so weird for a Les Paul. Wobble is my term for that. The pitch wobbles up and down. I might have just spelled the word wrong.
A lot of my friends are going to an LP after their Ibanez with Floyd Rose trems change the pitch on two string bends (and only one string intended to bend)... causes the trem to go upwards
Same can be said about a Strat. Every time I set them up to use the trem on any of them I find they don't keep pitch well, and 2 notes won't be in tune to eachother. Nature of the beast. Besides all that unless you swap out the stock bridge block with something with real mass like brass Floyds and Fender bridges lose a lot of sustain. Bigsbys are not like that, they give you equal tone due to the larger amount of surface touching the whole body. That huge spring keeps everything from moving on you when you bend to so I never get my Les paul out of tune by bending. Worst thing about a Bigsby is the shear bulk of the size takes some getting used to. Its harder for me to find my volume knobs when I want to change the volume to get certain tones and thats a big deal to any blues guitar player.
A lot of my friends are going to an LP after their Ibanez with Floyd Rose trems change the pitch on two string bends (and only one string intended to bend)... causes the trem to go upwards
Just found a cool site on topwrapping.
http://www.dominocs.com/AshBassGuitar/index.html
Just to make sure, its ok to topwrap using tonepros locking studs right?
^^ yea its no issue at all with top wraping with locking studs, actually i find it better to top wrap with locking studs, because with regular studs the tail peice tend to tilt upwards from the string tension from pulling on the back of it.
a good trick to do when top wraping is to run a string though a ball end of the old string, so that you can give the string a bit more gap backwards to get rid of the overlapping part of the string end which sometimes sticks out too far from the TP and making the strings harder to top wrap.
http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/6475 … g_7527.jpg
http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/6628 … 9-copy.jpg
http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/7197 … 8-copy.jpg
http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/7341 … 2-copy.jpg
Holy crap, that looks like a good idea. I gotta try that now!
I also think that when the winding sticking out a bit from the backside of the tailpiece slowly bends up keeping the guitar from initially staying in tune. This is especially with the wound strings.
@RamiLP:
Hey,
that thing with the new string through the old ball end is great. I'll try that one! Thanks! My strings, when top wrapping, used to stretch at the wound-round part.
I think that's the same problem as NPB_EST.1979's.
I hope I can fix that by using that idea.
By the way I'm new here. So hello!
Greetings
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