Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

My latest build, all mahogany with ebony board. 24 Jumbo SS frets, ABM brass wraparound bridge with Schaller top locking tuners. CTS pots and vintage wiring.
Painted with a pearl finish. Weight is around 6.4 lbs . Scratch plate and cover plates are Carbon Fibre
Pickups are Wolfe tone P90's. I've given it a Tony Iommi flavour with the inlays.
















Cheers Mark

Hi Mark,

I'm just about to embark on a SG Junior build with the one p90. If my project can look as good as yours I will be a happy man. Congratulation on a fine build.

I will also be using a zero nut after I build a LP recently using the zero nut. The guitar has a great feeling neck and spot on intonation. The Les Paul Junior that I finished just recently I didn't use the zero nut and I'm kicking myself now. It is not a copy of a Les Paul Junior as it is a little thinner in the waist to fit the cap I wanted to use.

Cheers for now

Alan

Thanks Alan, I do like zero frets, the only side effect that happens is the slide sideways slip if bending high up the board but once you get used to it you forget about it.
One of my bugbears is that string break angle over the nut, I usually make my headstock angle at 8 degs and sometimes have issues with nuts and tuning issues just seems to take a while to get right. It was with this in mind I decided to lower it further, I have built a few Red Specials which have 4 deg string break over the zero fret and have been a really stable tune even with tremelo units.
So with this build I used the Zero fret with a string break angle of 5 degs and it has worked perfect, I can see these almost becoming standard for me.
A friend of mine dropped around with his LP junior which had a Wolfetone "meaner" p90 in it and that sounded great into my amps, so that was the choice for this build.
Cheers Mark

Hi Mark,

Could you explain the side slip you are experiencing please? Is the string loosing tune when bent or is it sliding off the side of the fingerboard?
My plan states 17 degree angled headstock? Seems a little excessive!

As the neck is already 4 degree angled with the 5 degree applied to the headstock you think that is spot on with the zero nut?

Thanks for your attention

Cheers

Alan

Hi Alan, what I'm talking about is the string break angle over the zero fret, by making it lower it reduces the friction and gives a more stable tuning.


this shows my string break angle.
I know the plans state 17 degs for the headstock angle as you can see I didn't do that mine was about 5 deg just be wary of the zero fret height and the point where the string goes through the tuners as this is relevant to the actual string angle.
I was aware that somewhere in Ken Parker's notes that he uses a 4.5 deg string break angle.

As to the sideways slip

When trying to bend a note in the first fret area the string deflection sideways between the zero and the nut will cause the string to slide along that zero fret a little and you can feel it under you finger, it doesn't feel natural to me like it would on a standard type nut, it doesn't sound any different to normal it's just the feel.
Hope that explains it, cheers Mark

Thanks Mark you have explained it well.
On my Les Paul which has a 14 degree angled headstock and a zero nut I can do a tone bend on the b string third fret and not have any feel changes.
Thanks for your attention to my question.

Cheers

Alan