short scale strings problem on dearmond bass

[carrythetradish]

i recently acquired a dearmond jetstar bass. it's the short scale, set-neck, version. i just bought some d'addario short scale chrome flats for it. i put them on to find that the silk wrappings on all of the strings go past the nut. anyone care to share why they think this has happened?

[mellowgerman]

The bridge on Dearmond basses has more space between the saddles and where the strings are anchored than most normal bridges do. Therefore, the silk runs over the nut at the headstock. This was a common problem even with their Guild predecessors. As the story goes, Jack Casady and Phil Lesh, who used to use Guild Starfires and string them with Pyramid Gold flatwounds, would use razors to cut off the necessary amount of the silk to accomodate their basses. Having owned both vintage guilds and a dearmond, I used to either do this or buy long scale strings and strip the necessary amound of the outer coil off of the E string so it would feed through the tuner peg. IME both methods worked perfectly.

[carrythetradish]

great! thank you!

[domdec314]

How far past the nut is it? If it's less than an inch then you should be able to peal back some of the silk so that it sits right. My guess is that the distance from where the ball ends sit to the saddle is a little longer than a typical bass.

EDIT: Doh! Beat me to it!

Another quick suggestion: medium scale strings may fit better.

[Pilgrim]

Also, many of the Jetstars are NOT 30 inch scale! I'll bet yours is a 31 or 32, and you should use medium length strings.

Mine is a 32" if memory serves - haven't checked it in a while.

[carrythetradish]

thanks for the responses, my friends! thats a beautiful blue jetstar, by the way.