Best way to stop JTV59 piezo elements moving in casing

[edstar1960]

I have seen several JTV59 owners report the problem of the piezo elements moving within the saddle casing of the JTV59 bridge and several people have reported fixing it by applying glue or wrapping plumbers ptfe tape around the piezo.

 

I can see that my piezo elements move just by tugging on each string laterally just in front of the bridge, so I would like to know the best way to address this problem and exactly how to fix it.   I have never taken the bridge apart so have no idea how the piezo elements are fixed in or how they come out.

 

So please could anyone that has hit this problem and addressed it, add their solution with detailed steps to this thread?  That way anyone that hits the problem in future will be able to easily find the suggested solutions all in one place.

 

Thanks in advance everyone!    :)

[snhirsch]

Teflon tape is an elegant way to do this, but only if you have installed discrete ground wires on the elements.  Otherwise you run the risk of insulating the element from the bridge, which effetively kills the sound from that string since it relies on dumb mechanical contact for ground return.

[Charlie_Watt]

They are designed to float in there with the string pressure holding them firmly in place.  That is how all Variax piezos have been.  And that is why the Graphtech Ghost saddles are a much better design.  They have the piezos potted in plastic which is the saddle.

[stevekc]

 

 

They are designed to float in there with the string pressure holding them firmly in place.  That is how all Variax piezos have been.  And that is why the Graphtech Ghost saddles are a much better design.  They have the piezos potted in plastic which is the saddle.

 

 

However, speaking from experience, the Graphtech Ghost Saddles are far more susceptible to mechanically coupled adjacent string cross-talk  - these make DSP Alt Tunings have more  flutter & warble compared to stock LR Baggs Piezo Saddles    

 

Read more here

http://line6.com/support/topic/3672-jtv-89f-palm-muting/

[Charlie_Watt]

I don't use alt tunings much if at all with my 500 but I don't see why crosstalk would be worse with the Ghost saddles.  They are like standard strat saddles and they don't touch if they are set up right.  I can't see how there would be much mechanical coupling unless you lay your hand on the bridge - which I don't.  The good thing is that there is nothing to move since the piezos are potted into the plastic - and each has a separate ground wire.  I much more solid design IMO.

[edstar1960]

If the piezo elements are designed so the casing is used as the ground contact the surely it would make more sense that they should be a nice snug fit to ensure contact is maintained? 

 

The strings do hold the elements in place but it doesn't take a lot of lateral pressure on the strings to make the elerments move from side to side.  Anyone who hits the strings quite hard will be exposed to the risk of them moving and causing a "click" as they hit the side of the casing.

 

The other problem is that the elements are not high enough above the casing to ensure the strings are clear of the edge of the casing and they also run quite close to the edge of the actual bridge itself.  There are grooves cut into the casing but these are clearly not wide enough to allow for a standard low E width of 46.  Most guitar saddles ensure plenty of clearance from the top of the saddle to any fixings in front and avoid any potential contact to the rest of the hardware on the bridge.   IMO this is poor design and the source of many of the "plink", "plonk", "clang", "clank", digital artefact issues we see reported in the forum. It would seem that the only solutions are those carried out by katiekerry which are to use a needle file to widen the grooves in the front edge of the piezo element casings, and possibly to also file down the edge of the bridge below the low E to ensure no contact can be made even if strings are hit hard.   And for the movement of the piezo's it would seem that you have to install ground wires and then wrap the element to prevent movement which is not an easy job and which may be beyond the abilities of many.

 

Thanks everyone for your input to this discussion.