by bor64 » 28 May 2020, 05:44
Hi JIm,
Not every Marvin is created equal, the bulk of all original Marvin's are not equipped with a tilt mechanism.
Apparently Peter's Marvin isn't one with such devise, because he is thinking about a shim.
The sanding off of the saddles, is a last resort option....not one to think light about(but he asked for all options are welcome).
I assume Peter have done, all the common options and started with adjusting the neck relief first.
Then the the trem unit.
Shimming is the way to go...but if you maxed out...aka the shim becomes to high or much worse the shim is to high and to short.
Danger is you create the famous hump above the 15 fret, with a to high/short shim and create more problems!
I'm not a big fan of sanding the saddle bottom... but there are some after-market compensated tele saddles that are to high for some tele's .
Common practise is to sand of some brass beneath both E string sections of the saddle to keep the string radius in line with the neck radius.
On YT somebody does a demo on a anniversary tele and he makes a compensated nut by hand from a blanc pre-fab nut...
That geezer knows his stuff!
But again if nothing else helps, the saddle sanding is a last resort and to be honest, I never encounter somebody who had to do that on a Marvin.
Cheers Rob