strings over the nut

[longfinger]

Hey all,

I recently bought a Warwick from a store. The store setup was done in a manner where two of the strings' cloth windings pass half way over the nut. To me this seems incorrect as the cloth's thickness mis-places the open strings 'stop' location on the nut. The store tech is a friendly person, but perhaps not obsessive enough about setup precision for my tastes. Maybe I'm mistaken about the cloth ...

Attached is a picture.
D'Addario Chromes long scale (EADGB) on a 34" Warwick Corvette. (In the future, I'll look into a super lone scale string as the two piece bridge takes a lot of length at the ball end.)

Do you recommend I trim off the blue cloth? Note the taper windings under cloth near the nut on the E string.

thanks in advance...

[taviswardlaw]

a strange thing to do... i'd unwind and take off the offending string cut them a little shorter and restring. I only use fodera's (love the tone and feel too) though which don't have the reasonably useless cloth.

[Floyd Eye]

I don't think that will work. I think those are not the right strings for that bass, they are already too short.

[wideyes]

Originally Posted by Floyd Eye

I don't think that will work. I think those are not the right strings for that bass, they are already too short.

+1. Get longer strings. Nothing to do with setup (unless there's something you haven't told us).

[Eric Moesle]

You can take a razor blade to the windings and shred them farther back, off the nut.

A bit of a pain, but works sometimes. Either that or get longer scale strings.

[longfinger]

Before I bought this pack of D'Addario ECB82 long scale strings, I took the E and A string of an older pack that was on my Ibanez and tried them on the Warwick. Same ECB82 product code, same long scale (not super long). The E string from that old pack is an extra cm or two longer from ball to taper than is the new E string. That old string fitted fine, but it is old. The new D'Addario is shorter than the old one. Dargh.

Tomorrow, I'm going see about swapping the E string from my Fender, which is also a new pack.

The high "C" string does not seem to taper. I think I'll trim the blue cloth off on that one, so the metal rests directly on the nut. Does that seem reasonable?

[walterw]

trim the fuzz back with a razor, then get strings that are long enough to do the job.

[taviswardlaw]

ahh of course.. sorry... it was late night when i wrote that and i'm goofed up on painkillers... my bad.

[taviswardlaw]

the warwicks are 34" scale though aren't they? or... close enough (germans like aussies use centimeters so i think it's roughly a quater of an inch longer in scale, but i suppose you do have the two piece bridge which'd add an extra inch or two...

[lethargytartare]

Originally Posted by longfinger

...To me this seems incorrect as the cloth's thickness mis-places the open strings 'stop' location on the nut....

Two thoughts: go to the store, show the tech, and complain (nicely). Say, "I don't have to be a tech to know the thread windings aren't supposed to be in the nut" and ask them to give you new strings. Also, or even if they refuse, ask to take some strings out of other sets and just "air-fit" them to see if this was just a bad set -- if every other set of the same type of strings fits fine, then this is a bad set and you should get your money back. Basically, you should expect the store to do a text-book perfect job -- and either these strings are defective, or they did a bad job and they should correct it for you.

That said -- the only real issue for you is whether there is an ACTUAL problem. It looks sloppy -- yeah. And that's an ok reason to correct it. But you seem concerned about the functional impact. If the bass intonates fine, and the E and B are as bright as the other strings, then there is no functional impact, and cutting back the cloth windings is just a cosmetic thing. You could even theorize that the thread windings could preserve the nut and keep the string from binding in the slot...not that I'd start trying to get that result hahaha

Best of luck!

ltt

[Floyd Eye]

You COULD theorize that, but IMO it is highly unlikely that cloth windings will move more freely over the nut than the metal will.