snakestretcher52 wrote:Hi, I'm Andrew, been playing guitar for longer than I care to remember and am currently gigging with a 50s/60s covers band.
Hello, Andrew and welcome to the ShadowMusic Community. I'm sure you're going to enjoy it.
[An]other Burns I owned was a 1962 Short scale Jazz in the early 70s. Lovely sounding guitar but the roller bearing trem was a tuning nightmare!
The early 1970s, you say?
Most Burns guitars would stay in tune very well if set-up - and strung - properly. It was always one of the marque's unique selling propositions.
But "in the early 1970s"... I hazard a guess that you were using light-gauge strings?
The sort of tremolo bridge fitted to the Short Scale Jazz (similar to the original Bison), like the unit fitted to Fender Jaguars/Jazzmasters, or even like a Bigsby, is
very unforgiving of being asked to defy the laws of physics by being subjected to over-light guitars strings, especially given a short-scale like your old Burns, or a Jaguar.
By "over-light", I mean anything less than 11-50 at minimum, and 12-54 is better.
A musical colleague (hello, Brian!) and I have MIJ Fender Jazzmasters. The hardware is almost identical (mine is fitted with a Gibson-style ToM bridge), but my Jazzmaster, fitted with 12-54 DRs, stays in tune like a rock, whereas his, fitted with 10-46 D'Addarios, has to be constantly tuned between songs (and sometimes during them)...
Just a thought.
JN(now almost recovered after 25 hours on my feet for election day)