A week ago I was Stickless & facing a long wait for a Railboard. Then a UK based ironwood appeared in Classified. Yesterday that Stick arrived here. After leaving it overnight unopened to acclimatise I got to hold a Stick for the first time this morning.

It's every bit as beautiful as in the PO's pictures.

My first job was to re-tune, as it had been de-tuned for the journey. It has the light classic strings that you'd expect, but I understand matched reciprocal tuning is okay with this generation of Stick (twin, non-adjustable truss rods, & slotted screws at nut & bridge) & that's what I'd like to use, so I only took the melody side to EADGC instead of all the way to F#BEAD.

Question: Would it be better to get a 'proper' set of light matched reciprocal strings? As it's only a wholetone different I'm not sure if those would be just the same as the classic set or if a 'proper' MR set would be different with some subtle optimisations of spec?

It seems that at some stage since #1642 set out from SE in 1985 the setup has been radically disturbed.

I'm aware that the owner before last tried to restring it in all fourths right across, as seen the last time it was up for sale on Stickist, in 2020. Doing that apparently involved switching around the screws on the bass side at both nut & bridge, then putting them back.

Somewhere along the way the action on most strings has ended up much higher than seems right, especially so with strings 6 & 7 which are 3-4mm above the frets.

A couple of the melody strings are more like I'd expect. String 2 is especially 'sweet'; it's very low and rings out beautifully with just a small tap.

So, it seems that a pretty much wholesale set up at both nut & bridge looks to be required?

Question: Where to start?
e.g.
Is it best to work one string at a time, or on a broader front?
Is it better to start at nut end or bridge end?
Is it better to start with the thicker strings or the thinner ones?

Is this procedure maybe documented somewhere already?

Any help appreciated.

PS. Background: I have some limited experience adjusting guitar, but with this I'm a total beginner. In general I'm a 'handy' type of person, so I'm sure it can be done. I hope some hints will be available to help reduce the amount of trial & error in getting there.

Hi David, I think the first step would be to see how straight the neck is. If you hold down the first string at the first and last frets, are you seeing a gap between the string and middle frets, or is it resting on top of all fret surfaces?

Even though this wouldn't all apply to your instrument, this is something I refer to regularly:
http://stick.com/instruments/tech/setup/

Hi David,

Lots of questions from me and then hopefully some helpful suggestions. From the phot you posted, the string don't look like Classic 10 at all. The lowest melody string looks like a bass string even. Are these the strings that are on it now?

More questions from me after I hear from you...

Hi Rob. Neck is straight


Thanks, I had a feeling I'd seen a page like that, but could not recall where.

Deleted duplicate post that somehow appeared.

Hi Greg. Were you looking at the 2020 sale pictures? If so they are 'history'.

My understanding is that the instrument was re-strung by the 2020 purchaser with a freshly purchased light classic set (the empty packets were in the case) & that's how it is now.

I have a vernier gauge if a measurement would be relevant.

Edit to add links.

I'm relieved to hear it.

It's a beautiful instrument alright. Congrats!

The only issue with your plan to go to MR is that the intonation on the 4th string will be quite off, as in the MR set that string is a wound string. There is a fix for this. SE can send you two "shaved bridge screws" when you get your MR strings. These would go into place for strings 2 and 3. There's no way to "shorten" string 4, unfortunately.

If you want a lower tuning I suggest Baritone Melody, which is easy to compensate for. For that tuning you'd need 3 shaved screws, for strings 2, 3 and 5.

You can see what I'm talking about in Eric Knapp's article on his Stick retrofit here:

http://stick.com/instruments/tech/ericsstickretrofit/

The underside of the strings should rise slightly as the strings increase in gauge.

I hope that helps...

Hi David, I looked at the "now" pictures and like Greg said, the melody strings look quite heavy, like some kind of dual bass tuning. I would expect the melody strings on a 10 string to look more like this:

http://stick.com/instruments/pickups/st ... mboo10.jpg
http://stick.com/instruments/hardwoods/ ... 0_tail.jpg

Hi David

I'm no expert but the strings look very wrong on the melody side to me -- I have a 12 in matched reciprocal medium strings (so an extra lower melody string compared to classic) and my heaviest melody string is way lighter than those. My guess would be that the instrument has been set up dual bass reciprocal - you have no unwound strings at all?

I'd buy a known set of strings off the Stick shop site and start afresh.

Edited to add: Not sure if they're completely compatible but I have a spare set of 12 medium MR strings I could send you? I think the old ironwoods need light and it'd be 2 more than you need but the offer's there.

You are all correct. I chatted with this person a few years ago, I was going to sell her my SB8 but knowing it was a trans Atlantic sale and she was a Bass player trying to get that Bass feel for her band I declined knowing it wouldn't work for her. I think she told me she was going to Seattle to pick it up. Re stringing for sure.