Anyone with epiphone or clones or gibsons ever experienced this thing? I've had to glue mine in with titebond and it helped a lot but still can see a bit of lean, due to the type of wood used for the body i think. Asian 'mahogany' tend to be softer than the real deal...

nope, not for LPs'

I've seen in on other cheaper guitars, often its not mahogany but some unknown MDF ish wood. each time i screw the bridge down it would pop out .

asian mahogany shouldnt be a prb, all the MIC, MIK, MII guitars are made with that. so if anything bridges should pop very easy

That looks bad, seem to pop out at any moment.

Do you use extra heavy strings?

It's not my guitar, but i have the same problem with a recently acquired Rally Gl-400, but it was not THAt bad in the picture, maybe 30 to 40 percent only, which i reduced down to 5-10 percent after gluing in with titebond.

My samick AV3 has no such problem even strung with 10s.

The recent acquistion is on 9s and I intend to change to 10s after some time. If still lean, I will remove the studs and put in 30 minutes epoxy instead and let it sit for some time before pushing the bushing in again.


Apparently I read it happens to epiphones too, and very old gibsons.

This post has been edited by RiddleMeThat: Jul 3 2015, 11:30 AM

how does that mean the tune-o-matic bridge sucks?
more like the cheap china guitars suck.

It's not even tune o magic or stop tail the materials used are totally diff

i just wonder wtf is that wrapped around the posts?
like cellophane tape to make it tighter? kinda defeats the purpose there if its really cellophane.

hahaha the Gibson fanboys has spoken

Personally I'm not a big fan of TOM bridges, problems like these, collapsing bridges over time, intonation problems, unable to setup individual string height, intonation screw that buzzes or touches strings, loose retaining wires etc... etc.

I prefer a fender style hardtail anytime.

ya man, gary moore, bb king, hetfield...all those sure play out of tune

Im sure they do.. sometime

The intonation problem is a minor one la, but TOM bridge do require maintenance from time to time.

ironically in metallica, the person who plays out of tune doesnt use a tune-o-matic

but uhh, not really la.
my 74 TOM is extremely stable...then again the new ones have all the stop lock thingies and dunno what else.
plus i think the TOM u are confusing with is the abr-1...most models hardly use that anymore but are using the nashville ones.

btw, the one shown above is like a bastardised TOM abr-1.
usually on abr-1 the retaining wire is facing the neck, that one is facing the bridge.

actually its more of a bastardized nashville with a retaining wire...china boleh! zzz.

This post has been edited by Everdying: Jul 3 2015, 01:05 PM

I've searched for such problems in other forums, and many confirms it happened in epiphones and even gibsons.

This is a design flaw of such a bridge, since it does not take into consideration that wood can move and string tension will compress the headstock facing side of the bushing hole, causing the hole to get large over time.

Eventually it will happen even to gibsons, just depends on how long and how you prevent humidity changes that allow this.

The usual fix is to make a dowel and glue it in, then redrill, but keep it long enough, you'll have to do it again, maybe 10 years down the road.

Maybe in the cheaper epiphones and other mic/mik/mii clones 5 years on it will show up.

well my '74 and '00 dont have this issue.
maybe its more apparent on carved tops, so cant really say its a design flaw of the bridge.
as for wood, epiphones are of cos softer and dont have the hard maple cap that LPs have...so that also plays some part.

*ahem* fan boy only one here

tele bridge > gibson lol

I'm surprised that you'd not defend the abr-1 but then my abr-1 is also quite stable

i cant seem to find or see such a thing online, but anyway

humidity does fuck up any guitar, but in malaysia humidity issues is non-existant cause you wont get a hot and dry summer then a damp winter just a few months away. its largely unlikely to get that unless you put your guitar next to a toilet for 6 months then another 6 months near a constantly on bread oven.

you could fuck it up by messing with the stop tail often, but if left alone it should last a lifetime

the problem is however quite common in MIC guitars LP or not, I've seen it it before. common issue is the wood being substandard or the drillings are not entirely accurate. hence it pops out

not defending Gibson in anyway, but ya not had any issue with it.

my '00 is abr-1
i dont mind nashville also, but i just like the look fo abr-1.
gibson fucked up by not using abr-1 anymore since 2004 or so.

i thought they stopped using before?

strangely gibson puts its ABR-1 on classics i could never brain that move

afaik, 2004/05 is the last yr abr-1's appeared on production models.
cos its a classic?

Yeah, I do think most of the problems I mentioned are for the ABR1.

soundwise I think I prefer ABR1 too.. never played a Nashville that I liked. The dilemma... hahaha

That's why I stick with Fenders.

This post has been edited by quarantined: Jul 3 2015, 02:33 PM

ppl are stupid la, lets just put it that way.
complain ABR-1, then want nashville cos its 'better' yet not truly classic.
then gibson come out robot tuners which are 'better', and ppl want go back to 16:1 tuners cos its more classic

thats too close to the R0

then gibson realised their mistake, funny how by adding "classic" to a headstock changes the guitar entirely

the robot tuners were quite a mess if you ask me