ShortScale.org

Hi, I'm new to the forum, hopefully someone can offer me some advice.

I'm a total guitar novice, bought a beautiful second-hand surf-green Japanese Jag, to learn to play basically from scratch, but there are some problems with it.

The main issue I have is the little springed metal 'tube' (I'm sorry, I have no idea of technical terms) that the tremelo arm sits in seems to have come loose and 'fallen' inside the guitar - I can hear it rattling around when I pick it up. I assume that a screw/washer has come out (nothing has been lost, it's all gone inside the guitar body) and that this will be a fairly easy thing to fix - my question is, should I, with absolutely no know-how, try and fix this myself by screwing off the metal plate and fishing it out - or should I take it to a guitar shop and get a professional to look at it? Am I at any real risk of damaging my guitar attempting this myself?

The second issue is the bridge is entirely 'loose' from the guitar (I found this out when taking the strings off) - Is this simply the design of the guitar, or should it be bolted in place? My brother plays a Gibson SG and a Strat, and says the bridges on those are screwed it. Any thoughts?

I'm considering getting the guitar properly set-up, but I'd rather not shell out any more money than I already have, and besides, I guess it's probably healthy to get adept at maintenance ASAP.

Thanks!

I've just realised too that i've spelt tremolo wrong, several times. Ahem...

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about jaguar bridges, but the bridge is supposed to come out like that.

The best piece of advice I can give is to take the plate off and work out how everything works, and put it back together. It's the best way of learning this stuff.

There are two videos that detail how to get a good set up on a Jaguar bridge by Fran (one of the posters here). This should put yoyou right for getting it all back together again, and if you need to know anything else, there's always someone here that'll know.

[youtube][/youtube]

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^ Much appreciated. Yeah, I am erring on the side of taking it to pieces myself, I'm just a bit concerned by potential for damage courtesy of my complete ignorance...

The worst thing that can happens is that you'll have a hard time putting it back together again. I'd say you're unlikely to actually do any damage or break anything.

pics of the jag?

Tell your brother to hold his SG face down next time there's no strings on and then get back to you on how the bridge is affixed.

You won't damage the guitar by taking the tail piece off and having a look yourself, it's probably in your best interest anyway to have a look around the guitar. As for the bridge, it's meant to be like that. If you're not totally happy with how it plays, I'd get it set up professionally 'cause Jags can be very awkward to set up, especially if you're new to playing. And yeah, your brother can't have changed the strings on his SG if he reckons the bridge is screwed down.

^ to be honest, that's probably me misinterpreting entirely what he's told me, he's been playing his SG in a band for about 8 years...

Thanks again for all the info.