Tailpiece problem-low string scratches the screw

Anibal

Hi friends, this is my first post here, I'm Anibal from Spain, proud owner of an American Vintage '62 Jaguar. Firstly I want to congratulate you guys for such a great forum, I've been a while reading the threads and watching the nice guitars in there 😀 Secondly I would like to apologize if my english is not good enough.

I love the sound of my guitar and I have no particular issues with the bridge, I use the stock one (with 11 strings) and I have no problem with the adjustment. But the tremolo-tailpiece system confuses me a lot.

The way it's adjusted now, the tailpiece is a bit low and I have problems using the tremolo: The tailpiece is so low that the low E string is literally touching the screw just below the string, (you know those 3 big screws in front of the tailpiece). And when I use the tremolo (I use it a lot in a very subtle way) there's an awful scratch from the wound E string against the screw back and forth, and that horrible sound is amplified when it's plugged in. I also think that the string is suffering with the scratch and I'm afraid of breaking the string.

I've been loosening screws up and down but I can't raise the tailpiece, and I wasn't able to move it, so I would like to know how to fix this problem. Here's a picture of the string against the screw:

Thanks for the helping, greetings!

Disappearer

Welcome to the forum. 😁

Have you tried raising the bridge? That could work if you haven't tried it already.

Hope that helps.

Anibal

Thanks for your answer 😀 You mean the whole bridge, the 6 saddles one by one, or just the low E saddle? I'm worried about setting the action too high, would I need to adjust the truss rod again? Never done it and I don't want so sent it to a luthier, I have a gig in 3 days!

So there's no way to adjust the tailpiece? Here's a couple of pictures so you can see my setup:

Disappearer

Hmm... Now I think about it there must be a way to adjust the tailpiece, but I don't know how. 😕

Try searching Google on how to raise it, and if all else fails you might have to just raise the low E saddle a bit for the gig and then take it somewhere to be looked at afterwards.

Sorry I can't be of more help. ☹

JaguarOW

looks like you need to raise the bridge and shim the neck to compensate

Anibal

Yes, that's what I was suspecting. But I don't dare doing it, so I put a small piece of tape around the string to avoid the scratching (I think it does not affect the sound at all) and after the gig I will take the guitar to someone who knows what he does better than me.... Thanks!

Richie

Don't raise the bridge and don't shim the neck just yet. That really doesn't look right, there must be something wrong with the way your tailpiece is put together/ set up. Have you tried removing the tailpiece and checking all the workings of it from underneath?

Fran

Yeah that looks lower than usual. Try tightening the three screws a little, if you look at this trem set-up page it will give you a good idea whats going on under the trem plate...

http://www.webrocker.de/jaguar/cms/2007/05/12/setup-the-tremolo-system/

Anibal

Hey, mine don't look like that at all, it's too low!. I tried to tighten the screws, but they are already tightened. Now I have no time, but tomorrow I'm gonna pull it off and see what's going on down there.... 😕

Fran

Someone could have modified things underneath with a washer or packer to try and increase the angle from the bridge. Jags and Jazzys seem to suffer bodge modifications more than any other guitar.

Joey

Pull the tremolo plate off and adjust the coil spring tension.

Anibal

Joey said: Pull the tremolo plate off and adjust the coil spring tension.

The coil spring is the spring of the vibrato, or there's more springs underneath the plate? 😕

Richie

There is only one spring under there. Look at the diagram, and you can see how the trem spring being too loose would potentially lower the back end of the tailpiece, it looks like this is what's happened so you just need to tighten the "trem adjustment screw", as it's labelled on the diagrams.