Top wrap vs. regular setup on the Bluesbird

[mad dog]

Just got my red bluesbird back from the tech, with the Tom Short undercover mini p/us installed. How they sound (sweet!!) is another whole post, but it was a setup variation that caught my attention. This guitar came to me with strings top wrapped over the stop tail, which was set down to the body. As so:

My longtime favorite guitar tech saw this, said (in effect) "I doubt you need it." We talked it over, I said why not, restring it your way. Let's see how it goes. With .11s, which is my usual preference.

So I get it back - not top wrapped, stop tail elevated - and it plays very differently. Not better. Stiff, hard to bend. Where before it was a slick, easy player. So I restrung it, this time with .10s, reverting to the lower stoptail, top wrapping as before. Big change. Back to slick player. So I kept fine tuning the action, also restrung the top three strings with slightly heavier (.18, .14, .11), leaving the lighter gauge strings on for the bass side. That feels like the perfect setup for this guitar.

It's a pretty dramatic difference. I kept going back and forth between the BB and my Les Paul, with a lower bridge, strung the regular way. Which is such a fine player. Realized it had to be the string angle off the bridge on the BB, so much steeper when you don't top wrap. And so it seems to be. A little lower string angle off the bridge transforms the action.
MD

 

[Zelja]

Top wrapping is definitely an easy , reversible way of changing feel & tone of your guitar. Only downside of trying it maybe that you can scratch up your stoptail.

I tried it on my Orville LP. The guitar seemed to go into feedback easier after that which seemed a bit strange to me. In thee end I preferred the more standard way of doing - the tone seemed more defined & solid to me.
Mind you the Bluesbird is different as the stoptail is a lot closer to the bridge than on an LP. Anyway, as with all things, it's down to personal preference.

 

[Hammer]

I top wrap and deck the tailpiece on all of my stop tail/ToM equipped fiddles. I like the slinkier feel (thanks for that, S-100s!). I don't worry too much about the stop tail for two reasons...1, they are a dime a dozen to replace and 2, the movement stops at the bridge...not much movement going on between the bridge and tailpiece unless you play around back there to bend when playing Iron Man or something silly.

 

[mad dog]

I've been revisiting this issue again, and the Bluesbird is teaching me lots.

Top wrapping surely did feel better than the regular setup on this guitar when it came back from the tech. Much easier to play. Yet as I played it more, found the downside. A bit too much "plinky" in the sound of certain notes, most noticeable on the G string. Hadn't noticed that when I got the guitar with .10s on it (top wrapped). Treble strings from an .11 set now, could that be it? Or did I somehow cause it in messing with setup?

So I restrung with the same strings, only now not top wrapped. And lost some playability, as had happened before. But this time I kept messing with it. First raised the stop piece slightly higher than my tech had. Helped a bit. Lowered the action a touch more. Checked the neck relief, which was set as my tech prefers it - not flat, but not much relief. So I gave it an 1/8th of a turn more on the truss rod, then lowered the action a tiny bit more.

Those little changes improved playability ... not quite as slinky as when top wrapped, but close, feels good. I'll swap in treble strings from a .105 set, at which point it'll probably be perfect. Best of all, less "plinky" in the sound is reduced.

What I'm learning is how subtle and important setup is. Small changes add up to big differences in feel and tone. And it takes time to get a guitar where you want it.
MD