Pitfalls of swapping zinc for steel Stop/TOM bushings

[wwit]

Okay, so I've got the Gotoh Aluminum Stop and TOM on all my Epiphones. I've always had a slight hiss from my JBLP which I always thought was sort of normal when your not touching the strings or resting my hand on the stop/tom. Always fairly quiet when I do this.

Today I got in the mood to do some much needed deep maintenance to my JBLP and pop out the factory pot metal inserts and finally install the steel ones that came with the Gotoh aluminum stop I have used since this guitar was new. Removal of the old ones was a snap. Only took a few seconds. Easy Peazy. 1st thing I notice is that all but 1 of the stranded wire used by the factory was sheared off and laying broken off in the bottom of the insert well doing absolutely nothing at all. Using my magnifying specs, I could see that only a single fine(hair like fine) strand of the wire no more than @ 1mm was in contact with the insert.

I'm guessing that getting a solid wire ground back in there may help ground much better than they way it came from the factory.

2nd discovery. I have been reading the virtues of using the steel stop/tom inserts and how it allegedly improves tone and resonance in comparison to the factory zinc or pot metal ones. I've been an advocate for the Gotoh hardware on Epiphones using everything except the inserts that came on with the Gotoh parts. The stop comes with steel, bet the Gotoh bridge only comes with zinc, so thinking that's okay, I have 6 of these steel inserts kicking around For now, I'll just put 4 into the JBLP and see if there is any improvement.

At this point I hit another snag. The steel and zinc inserts supplied by Gotoh are both @ 11mm O.D. The factory Epiphone at @ 12mm O.D.

So now I'm thinking, I have 2 options. Put it back together as is and play it after fixing the ground? Or do I hit the hardware store for 1/2" or 13mm hardwood dowels, drill the guitar, glue in said dowel and hope to hell that my MS doesn't flair up while attempting to 12mm holes straight enough for the inserts to fit?

There's is option 3...bring it to luthier. Wait 6 months and pay seriously for him to fix as I want? That's sounds like the least fun for me, so it quickly got tossed out as an option.

Then while contemplating what to do, I happened to come across a company called Faber. Who I heard of, but from what little, I've read just sounded like a very expensive manufacture of what appears to be high end Stop/TOM's. But while looking at there site, I stumbled across that they do offer the correct size steel inserts for current Epiphones. So that became the final option.

At this point its all apart and I'm to OCD to put it back stock now I that convinced myself that steel inserts are a 'must have mod'

So more money most likely needlessly spent and parts on order.

 

[vomer]

Good to hear you're following your gut/heart/GAS with your mods. I recently put a TonePros bridge on my Sheraton, and it came with strong advice to not replace the inserts, which were included 'for new builds'. They did seem very slightly heavier than the originals but I don't know what they are made from. TonePros don't have that kind of detail on their site. I'm going to see if I can live without them for a while .

 

[wwit]

Okay, So I got this all put back together. Final setup done.
I ended up doing a few things all at the same time, so hard to say which was the improvement. Id it was any single item or all as a whole?

So I started with JBLP. Originally added a bone nut back when new as it was shipped my Epi cut far too deep to salvage. When new I added Gotoh Aluminum Stop and Gotoh Bridge. I kept factory inserts in place. Later I found out that the Stop/Tom inserts are zinc or pot metal. Zinc and pot metal are both known tone suckers. Also found that the ground wire to the Stop insert was sheared off at the factory and only a single hair like thin strand of the ground wire less than 1mm in length was making contact with the pressed in insert. Explains odd ground noise issue since new.

I found that the Gotoh metric inserts shipped now are for older model Epiphones...from what I can find are @ pre-2009/10. Current LP inserts measure @12mm. Old ones @11mm. So not interchangeable. I found that Faber carries the right size inserts in steel. So I ordered 2 sets so to complete the guitar.

My other concern with both my JBLP and my new '56 Pro is that they both share a high piercing harmonic raspy noise from the steel saddles in the Gotoh's. I don't recall whether the stock bridge ever did that. Hard to tell over the loose rattles that they have. Besides inability to intonate properly, the rattles was my main reason to replace with Gotoh in the first place. But after having read one of the many thousands of Joe B. gear related interviews where he talks about replacing his unwound string saddles with bone or possible Graph Tech saddles in his LP's to help tone down or soften the sharpness of the attack and make them sound more like wound strings. This stuck in my head. So while experimenting, I found that Graph Tech does make there saddles to fit the Gotoh "Japan" stamped bridge which is the one that fits the Epiphone. So I ordered a set of those as well.

As it all came in I put it all back together. All simple enough to work with. And as a whole made the guitar sound brand new again. A proper ground surely helped the pickups gain there missing uumph again. No more mystery hum anymore either. But the new steel inserts along with the new saddles changed the tone and the physical feel of it. No more high pitched harmonic ice picky whatever you want to call it. More resonant. Feels more alive then ever.

As soon as I felt that it was an actually improvement and not just a placebo effect, I ordered the same parts all over again to swap into my '56 pro.

 

[Tsquared]

Nice to know the Gotoh can be tamed. Got one in a drawer because that rattle is just NASTY.

 

[Curmudgeon]

Okay, So I got this all put back together. Final setup done.
I ended up doing a few things all at the same time, so hard to say which was the improvement. Id it was any single item or all as a whole?

So I started with JBLP. Originally added a bone nut back when new as it was shipped my Epi cut far too deep to salvage. When new I added Gotoh Aluminum Stop and Gotoh Bridge. I kept factory inserts in place. Later I found out that the Stop/Tom inserts are zinc or pot metal. Zinc and pot metal are both known tone suckers. Also found that the ground wire to the Stop insert was sheared off at the factory and only a single hair like thin strand of the ground wire less than 1mm in length was making contact with the pressed in insert. Explains odd ground noise issue since new.

I found that the Gotoh metric inserts shipped now are for older model Epiphones...from what I can find are @ pre-2009/10. Current LP inserts measure @12mm. Old ones @11mm. So not interchangeable. I found that Faber carries the right size inserts in steel. So I ordered 2 sets so to complete the guitar.

My other concern with both my JBLP and my new '56 Pro is that they both share a high piercing harmonic raspy noise from the steel saddles in the Gotoh's. I don't recall whether the stock bridge ever did that. Hard to tell over the loose rattles that they have. Besides inability to intonate properly, the rattles was my main reason to replace with Gotoh in the first place. But after having read one of the many thousands of Joe B. gear related interviews where he talks about replacing his unwound string saddles with bone or possible Graph Tech saddles in his LP's to help tone down or soften the sharpness of the attack and make them sound more like wound strings. This stuck in my head. So while experimenting, I found that Graph Tech does make there saddles to fit the Gotoh "Japan" stamped bridge which is the one that fits the Epiphone. So I ordered a set of those as well.

As it all came in I put it all back together. All simple enough to work with. And as a whole made the guitar sound brand new again. A proper ground surely helped the pickups gain there missing uumph again. No more mystery hum anymore either. But the new steel inserts along with the new saddles changed the tone and the physical feel of it. No more high pitched harmonic ice picky whatever you want to call it. More resonant. Feels more alive then ever.

As soon as I felt that it was an actually improvement and not just a placebo effect, I ordered the same parts all over again to swap into my '56 pro.

I put a Gotoh aluminum stop on my '56. A very noticeable improvement.