Want some info on Wilkinson hardware!

Lukeage

I've probably posted about this guitar more times than I dare try and count up/remember! My troublesome Vintage Icon (v100). 

So I've just given it its third set of machine heads in its 5 and a half years of life (a second set of Gotoh after the Wilkinsons broke)! 

And I was just putting the bridge and tailpiece back on when I noticed some things

1) the bridge is rusty.

2) the tailpiece is rusty

3) the pickup covers are dirty as anything/slightly rusting.

What the heck? For a guitar of its age and for the amount I've actually played it in that time and that it's not been exposed to moisture etc... I've got other guitars that I've had for heaps longer and they still shine like the day I got them!

So my question would have to be: why? Did Wilkinson make the hardware purposely so that it would rust easily on the Icon models so that it'd fit in with the aged look better or is there some horrible defect or something that I did wrong?!

The QC is questionable. There's so many holes that are just drilled in at weird sizes and getting the thing back together in working order was no mean feat... and on top of that it's rusty?! 

matone

You only ever get what you pay for !

xHymnal

Bit alarming, a lot of high end builders now use wilkinson hardware! 

benmurray85

all i can add to this is that i have one of those v100 icon series and have gigged it infrequently over the two years or so I've owned it and all the hardware looks in decent condition. mine is the relic'd one so apart from the obvious (dodgy, heavy handed factory relicing) theres no issues to report. 

did you buy brand new or is there a chance someone had it before you and tried to get handy on it? more regarding the weird hole situation. 

ooh the only issue i did once have with it was a friend put a coil tap on the hum bucker for me. he had to remove the neck and ever since then its not played great. thats why it was removed from main gigging duty. the bottom e feels like it doesn't sit on the neck properly. since i know shit about guitar maintenance i haven't bothered much. 

Fez

Ben that sounds like it just needs a proper set up.

ThePrettyDamned

Hardware will always rust. Cheaper hardware has very thin plating and cheaper materials underneath.

Ruining gotoh tuners is hard though... They are quality, and no cheap.

Wilkinson hardware is generally quite good, but with the odd dog. I had a gold tele bridge from Wilkinson and it was a cheaper one and yet it was solid, well made with decent plating and had nice saddles. So perhaps you've been unlucky.

Also, import hardware rusts as soon as the plating has gone. Look at any prs SE stop tail bridge. They're Bloomin awful!

Wolfetone

The only brand of hardware that I fit is GOTOH. It really is superb quality and they have quite a large range of styles. Their long travel tunomatic bridges are supreme. 

GSPBASSES

There’s Wilkinson and there’s Wilkinson, if its only got Wilkinson on the box its low end, but if its Wilkinson by GOTOH on the box then its middle to high end.

The photo below show on the left Wilkinson by GOTOH cost around £75 the one on the right is a Wilkinson by Lung-IL cost about £17 on E-Bay. Note that the Wilkinson Logo is almost the same on both bridge's so beware.

ThePrettyDamned

GSPBASSES;114565" said:

There’s Wilkinson and there’s Wilkinson, if its only got Wilkinson on the box its low end, but if its Wilkinson by GOTOH on the box then its middle to high end.The photo below show on the left Wilkinson by GOTOH cost around £75 the one on the right is a Wilkinson by Lung-IL cost about £17 on E-Bay. Note that the Wilkinson Logo is almost the same on both bridge's so beware.

I learned something today, thanks for that.

The lower end one is the one I had - and I stick by it, it was decent, flat (unlike some tele bridges I'd seen...) and well made. However, I'd assume some of the quality control is iffy, so it's buyer beware.

ICBM

I've seen quite a lot of problems with Wilkinson hardware over the years, and I don't think it deserves its reputation for quality, often. The biggest problems I've come across have been with the original VS100-ype bridges, which suffer from both chipped knife edges and broken saddle mounts (which are unrepairable). Other stuff sometimes just isn't very well designed and/or can seem like a solution in search of a problem.

GSPBASSES said:

There’s Wilkinson and there’s Wilkinson, if its only got Wilkinson on the box its low end, but if its Wilkinson by GOTOH on the box then its middle to high end.

The photo below show on the left Wilkinson by GOTOH cost around £75 the one on the right is a Wilkinson by Lung-IL cost about £17 on E-Bay. Note that the Wilkinson Logo is almost the same on both bridge's so beware.

This is a good example - I tried one of the ones on the right and found it was even worse than an uncompensated bridge - the stagger on the saddle tops is far too big, and it actually sounded more out of tune, not less. The quality of the parts was fairly poor and it felt flimsy and lightweight too.

The one on the left is a far superior piece of engineering as well as being better made.

Dave_Mc

GSPBASSES said:

There’s Wilkinson and there’s Wilkinson, if its only got Wilkinson on the box its low end, but if its Wilkinson by GOTOH on the box then its middle to high end.

The photo below show on the left Wilkinson by GOTOH cost around £75 the one on the right is a Wilkinson by Lung-IL cost about £17 on E-Bay. Note that the Wilkinson Logo is almost the same on both bridge's so beware.

Yeah the Gotoh-made Wilkinson stuff is the higher-end stuff.

57Deluxe

Blimey.... didn't know they had branched out...

http://www.wilko.com/icat/dreamweave-trend

Lukeage

In all seriousness a number of years ago when I was looking at buying my first LP style guitar, the guy in Andertons warned me against buying Vintage because of the inconsistencies in the holes drilled for fitting the hardware and that Wilkinson hardware was 'duff', so I left that and got an Epiphone LP Studio instead! When I got the Icon a few years later (and I did buy it BNIB from London Guitar Show, it would have been 2006 I think...) all seemed well. Looked good, sounded good, played good...

Not long after I had it it fell off its stand and onto a hard floor. The wilkinson machine heads are absolutely useless. They're thin plastic and completely hollow on the inside (unlike the Gotohs) and they shatter on impact, and the metal shafts bend.

I replaced it with a set of Gotohs before - but I can't vouch for exactly why the gears in the new Gotoh G string machine head were dodgy. They seem to be super sensitive, this new set. And I had a lot of problems getting some tuning stability going... And I've had the guitar set-up and re-set up. So I have no idea, other than to come to the conclusion that either I got a duff one or Wilkinson hardware just is shite/only seems to work on Wilkinson designed instruments (unless of course it breaks into a thousand pieces!) 

OilCityPickups

I've pretty much replaced all the hardware on my own V100. Pickup covers were brass ... and as shite as the Wilkinson ceramic magnet pickups they covered. The Wilkinson snot green tuners were hopeless at tuning, never mind being brittle ... so a set of locking Rotomatic type jobbies were put on. The guitar itself was great ... but the only Wilkinson hardware I trust now are the Strat bridges.

ThePrettyDamned

TheGuitarWeasel;115144" said:

I've pretty much replaced all the hardware on my own V100. Pickup covers were brass ... and as shite as the Wilkinson ceramic magnet pickups they covered. The Wilkinson snot green tuners were hopeless at tuning, never mind being brittle ... so a set of locking Rotomatic type jobbies were put on. The guitar itself was great ... but the only Wilkinson hardware I trust now are the Strat bridges.

Just a quickie, have you used the luthiers love locking tuners from axesrus? They're supposed to be good, I'm thinking of getting some...

Lukeage

I'm actually not so much bothered about the fact that it is rusting, it does add character to the guitar - but it does seem really quite poor quality. 

And just personally I quite like the pickups in the guitar, though I've thought about replacing them with the new SD Slash pups or maybe Joe Bonamassa signatures...