OM45GE - Posted - 12/04/2009:  04:05:47

It is amazing how responsive Stellings are to set up. I found that my 88 Golden Cross responded to a pretty sharp break of the strings over the bridge. It's got a 3/4" Stelling bridge and the tailpiece is level to the head. I tried several lower bridges with different tailpiece heights and nothing came close so I went back to the setup described above.

I'm happy your saga turned out wll Billy. Now play that wonderful Stelling!

Craig, Not to be a contrarian or anything, but why clean up the "older" Stelling? I like to think of it as the patina of age. I also worry about losing some of its incredible sound if I disturb components that have been happily settling in with each other for over 20 years (in my Golden Cross).

Billy Cipri - Posted - 12/25/2009:  20:55:56

Just a footnote, but having only very recently learned to handle some of this fundamental setup stuff myself...I applied Geoff Stelling's basic setup list to assist a friend in bringing a 1990's Gibson RB250 'back to life'...after he'd apparently left it sitting in a closet for about the past nine years. It was a pretty 'dead' sounding banjo by this point in time and the neck definately needed some tweaking, (not to mention a brand new set of strings.)

Anyway, we found that the basic 'specs' from Geoff Stelling's setup list worked equally as well to bring this long-neglected RB-250 back to life! In fact, it sounds so good now that I don't think he'll be inclined to let it languish in a hallway coat closet again, any time soon!

Dave Coin - Posted - 12/26/2009:  08:42:56

Great advice here, that I'm going to keep for reference. Still, if my old Bellflower would ever sound less than crazy-good, I could maybe justify a nice car trip to Afton, Va. for a setup by Geoff.