Edwards JP Relic - excessive string breakage

[shood]

I have experienced a lot of broken strings on my Edwards, on every string but the low E, and the strings are breaking at the bridge. I picked up my guitar on Sunday and my A string had broken during the week after I had last played it, very strange.

Is anyone else having similar problems with his or her Edwards?

I have read threads that suggest checking the saddles for burs and filing them. Knowing my personal limitations, however, I can say that there is a pretty good chance I would do more harm than good if I put file to guitar.

What other solutions are there? New saddles? Recommendations?

A new bridge? Recommendations? (I have read that TonePros and the Edwards' Gotoh are essentially the same bridge, is this true?)

Is it possible that there is some other culprit? The guitar is only a few months old, I think it is strange that 5 of my saddles would already be in need of repair/replacement.

Thank you!

[shood]

bump. any suggestions?

[Dana Olsen]

I think the initial build quality on Epi bridges is a little lacking. Obviously there's a burr of some kind on the saddle(s).

You have to clean out the groove in the saddle with a nut file or emory cloth. Do it gently - you don't want to remove a lot of metal, just clean up the slot. You can wrap the file in emory cloth too. No need to replace the saddles, just fix the ones' you've got.

Dont' work on your own instruments? Take it to a good tech and have it set up, make sure to tell the tech abot the string breaking prob. Having a good tech set up your guitar is one of the best things you can do for your instrument.

Hope this helps, Good Luck, Dana O

[larry1096]

Originally Posted by Dana Olsen

I think the initial build quality on Epi bridges is a little lacking. Obviously there's a burr of some kind on the saddle(s).

You have to clean out the groove in the saddle with a nut file or emory cloth. Do it gently - you don't want to remove a lot of metal, just clean up the slot. You can wrap the file in emory cloth too. No need to replace the saddles, just fix the ones' you've got.

Dont' work on your own instruments? Take it to a good tech and have it set up, make sure to tell the tech abot the string breaking prob. Having a good tech set up your guitar is one of the best things you can do for your instrument.

Hope this helps, Good Luck, Dana O

Except this is an Edwards.

Run your fingernails over the saddles in the direction the strings lie, then side to side. Where your nail 'catches' is a ridge or burr that needs the attention Dana described.


Larry

[al.cxam]

After carefully checking the saddles for sharp edges (maybe a little bit of remedial smoothing...) you could try raising up the stop tailpiece to reduce the 'break-angle' of the strings running over the bridge - this ought to de-stress the strings somewhat and hopefully reduce the breakages...

[rastus]

Oddly enough, a player I know recently acquired an Edwards goldtop with p90s off ebay, and was experiencing a similar problem. I checked it out, and sure enough, the saddles were sharp where cut, and the break angle was way too steep. We put on some graph tec saddle, properly notched, but only because he likes the graphtec ones, the stock ones could have been filed smooth, no problem. We also top-wrapped it to lessen the break angle. It plays great, and has not broken a string since the adjustments were made. Killer guitar for the bucks, very impressive.

[Tuberoast]

I have an Edwards LP and never had that problem in the 2 years I've owned it. It's an easy fix as long as you don't over do it; the above instructions should do the trick.

[HRydarcik]

You might want to raise the stop bar a bit so the string angle isn't so steep.