Question for Tom

[Barry]

Tom,

I went over this issue with you on the forum a week or two back .Our band is now using an Eb tuning for vocal reasons . I did what you suggested on a few of my guitars . i went up to the next set on string guages and everything seems good so far . I have a Les Paul and the nut slot for the low E string was fairly tight and the next set up was too big for that slot . My question is this . Dont really want to recut the nut . Its new and a custom shop piece . If i tuned the guitar down to Eb just for the gig (4 hour ) and then tuned back up to E at the end of the gig before i packed it away , how would that effect the neck over time ?

[bruce]

It won't affect the neck over time... and you'll hardly see a difference (if at all) while it's tuned to Eb... (That's if the neck is in the ballpark to begin with). If it's that Joe Perry model in your signature, I believe those have maple necks and they are pretty stiff like the 70's LP's.

By the way, you can have the nut slots on that Custom Shop LP treated so that it can take .011's (or higher for that matter). It's all about widening the slots properly, not deepening them... that way it will stay in tune better as well.

[Barry]

It won't affect the neck over time... and you'll hardly see a difference (if at all) while it's tuned to Eb... (That's if the neck is in the ballpark to begin with). If it's that Joe Perry model in your signature, I believe those have maple necks and they are pretty stiff like the 70's LP's.

By the way, you can have the nut slots on that Custom Shop LP treated so that it can take .011's (or higher for that matter). It's all about widening the slots properly, not deepening them... that way it will stay in tune better as well.

Thanks for the info . I'll go back and check out the specs but i think the neck on my Joe Perry model is mahogany like the body . Its a fantastic LP by the way . Plays and sounds great .