| I had a Bigsby installed on my old '65
Gibson ES-335 (7 years ago) the day after Terry Efaw taught me how to
play Mr. Sand Man and I found that I couldn't tremolo that last part of
the tune (in C) were Chet threw in an A string harmonic sustain (at the
12th) and then rolled up a B chord - and, THEN THE NEATEST "DIP"
IN HISTORY!!! From then on - I could do that special little dip...
However, every time I would use the Bigsby - some
string would come out of tune. Usually, the B string. I
found that this was a prevalent problem among electrics - especially
thin bodied Gibsons. I tried carbon and graphite in the nut.
I had a graphite bridge put on. In that it was pretty evident that
it was the nut that was "binding" the strings out of tune - I
tried different nut material. However, nothing ever seemed to work
-and, me (and, most of my pickin' buddies) pretty much just lived with
this issue - and, made sure that if we were going to use the Bigsby that
we would make sure that it was near the end of a tune so that we could
retune - soon.
Then recently I caught wind of
this new "Slip Stone" nut material through some chatter on the
Fretboard between Paul Yandell and Rick Jenkins (great
players.) Called Stewart-MacDonald and ordered a few - and,
had Phil Maneri (5th Ave Fret Shop) install it for me. He called
me while he was filing the slots and was already raving about how
"slick" the material was. His only complaint was that
the composition was so soft that it was clogging up his files on one
pass - however, that was an indication of how "slick" it was
going to be. And, slick is was.
(We will be watching to see if they might wear out
quickly - but, who cares... I'm back to playing Sandman 20 times a
day.... 8^)
My detuning problems are now a thing of the
past... I also realized that I had been avoiding
"bending" my B string because it would come out of tune.
No longer a problem.... ANYBODY HAVING SIMILAR PROBLEMS SHOULD
CALL STEWART MACDONALD IMMEDIATELY...
Stewart-MacDonald
(800) 848-2273
Slip-Stone Nut - P/N 0222 (for Gibsons) - $3.99
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