Floyd Rose Help!!

[GAR]

http://www.floydrose.com/instructions.html

[GAR]

If you never installed a Floyd before, find a pro to do the job and just pay to have it done.

I have repaired Floyd-install fuckups before and it shouldn't be that big of a deal, yet many guitar techs do not understand some of the mainpoint principles where the bad things happen:

NUT

you have to router off the entire string nut portions behind the end of the fingerboard for the new Floyd solid steel stringblock/nut, plus drive the 2 holes ALL the way thru the neck, plus countersink behind the neck so that those Metric allen screwcap heads are flush (or better) with the neck radius and not an impediment to your hand as you pass over that part. AND - these 2 operations have to be measured exactly and squarely because there is NO going back.

My rule of thumb is like any in fine carpentry; measure twice, cut once.

I'd use a drill press to bore those screw holes thru the neck, but I've done it by eye with a hand drill and it worked out fine.

BRIDGE

The bridge area takes a regular Fender trem block rout, if the OLP has one already then all you need to worry about is the clearance you will need to make for the trem bar tension nut, and the position of the two fulcrum screws the bridge hinges on.

Everything about the Floyd being mentioned as an undependable bridge rests solely upon fools who give you a shitty install with loose or malpositioned fulcrum screws: it happens this way.. a guy will measure the screw thread size in a Drill Size selector hole (or even the drillset holder, I've seen that done - DUH) and the hole is then drilled oversized for the thread.

Countersinking the last 3/8" portion of the screw is vital for a tight fit in the body so it doesn't rock around and fuck up on your intonation and tuning. The Floyd is a solid and wellmade bar, and the woodscrews used for it last forever if installed properly - which I havent seen alot of in the early days and "repair people" would cry about how awful it is to do. For THEM maybe..

MAKE sure you measure for a drill just a cunthair smaller than the SHAFT of the thread, the inside flat of the grooved aread. Then, when you install it, rub just the ends of the thread on a bar of soap and use a large and NOT rounded flatblade screwdriver to drive it into the body. If you cant turn the screw past 3 turns, your drill was too small or you didn't use soap.

IF you fuck up drilling the bridge screws, all is not lost - you'll need to buy a stick of wooden dowel maybe 3/8 or 1/2 and drill out your fuckup and fill it using a length slightly smaller from each of the (hopefully) flat ends of the dowel, and a light dab of white Elmers glue before you push it down flush with the body surface and measure again for a redrill.

PREFERENCE

My personal taste is the Brad Gillis setup, where the neck is shimmed a bit so the bridge sits up a little high allowing a bit of backpulling on the bar. If you WANT the bridge to mount flush with the body, you'll have to countersink the fat end of the top a bit deeper, but don't get crazy going too deep: the threads portion need their length to "bite" down into the wood and you would rather measure exactly for both drills' depth in a practice piece of wood such as a pine 2x4 block and test-driving the screw down in that rather than a good guitar top and possibly fucking up and redoweling.

REDOWELING

- is not pretty, but if you fuck up then you have to. Plus, a 3 foot length is only like a buck at Home Depot or Lowes so not to worry.

DRILL PRESS

Use masking tape all the way across the front of the bridge, pulling a piece of dental floss or white string from the very center of the neck at the nut between D and G strings, then all the way to the bridge to find True String Centerline. Front the bridge (in the trem hole) up to the tape line (usually the previous bridges' screw holes) or intonation point, then scribe a crosshairs mark in the VERY MIDDLE of both fulcrum screws cutouts, to the edge of that masking tape line: that's the mark you use to drill.

Take a terry hand towel and cover the drill press platen so you don't scratch the finish. With the machine off, align the first, smaller drill right above the crosshair marks by bringing the arm down, then releasing it before turning the motor on. Do that alighnment before each drilling: you have 4 to do (2 smaller plus 2 counter sink)

MILLING OFF THE NUT AREA

I won't detail this too much because everybody fucks this up alot too, unless they have complete freehand control with a router: the bit will grab the neck and take a chunk, it will "walk" into the edge of the fingerboards' end, or just not mill to a perfectly straightacross depth.

Those are some of the problems, and one solution I built age 16 was a jig consisting of scrap plywood and 2x4 wood pieces with a clear plexiglas plastic top with a hole in it, and a light off a sewing machine. I still use it when I need to, but very simply you need to clamp the neck down to something solid and place a flat area above the fingerboard you can hold the router base against without tipping or milling crookedly by misguiding the depth of the bit. You could even do a jig like this with two sides of plywood or block 2" tall by 4 wide to "straddle" the neck, plus a piece of plywood or masonite 3" wide by 4" long, nailed together by 3 penny or brad nails after gluing.

Once that nut area is milled its easy to score the 2 nut holes. You can't drill those holes before it's milled off.

NUT HOLES

I am pretty careful about that, by drilling pilot holes down from the top, then flipping the neck fingerboard down and finishing the rest off before enlarging to the countersunk area for the heads. Its the last thing you do because however the bridge is mis-aligned, your last chance at a comfortable string spaceing after that is at the nut side-to-side placement. And once those 2 holes are drilled you don't wanna go back.

[GAR]

Another thing about my preferred setup is that I like adjusting the intonation points on the bridge really close to the front, towards the lead pickup, then grinding down what I'd call the "padfeet" and intonation capscrews especially low so as NOT to impede touching the strings during whammy "pull-ups".

Once I prep the bridge this way, which takes about 12 hours on the fucking bench grinder (shit gets red hot removing the metal from all those pieces) I locate for my fulcrum screws positioning which I like to get as far back towards the routed blockhole, but just enough so there's some meaty amount of wood material to hold the screw from breaking thru. But just enough, perhaps 80 to 90 thousandths (.080-.090).

I also epoxy the endgrain of that wood area behind the block so it doesnt split. All I do is scrape paint off to bare wood, mix up some 5 min epoxy, then spread it like paste with the guitar body pointing neck down till it dries like a varnish. I feel this strengthens that area from splitting.

This preferred setup of mine pushes the intonation point back abit on a new guitar body which I like because the distance between lead pickup polepieces and bridge is greater for sensing more string vibration energy, but on a prebuilt guitar there's little else you can do because you're limited to preset positions unless you re-router the neck pocket forward a bit to get that bridge intonation point backwards some.

(Also, I don't like back-routing for the stringlocking capscrews, like the Vai setup way of doing it.) I would rather tilt the neck back with shims or filing the pocket down to get the bridge up, than to remove any of the body just for bridge clearance. But that depends again on the type of guitar and setup.

[smaz]

Originally posted by GAR


REDOWELING

- is not pretty, but if you fuck up then you have to. Plus, a 3 foot length is only like a buck at Home Depot or Lowes so not to worry.

For us from the U.K.: A metre stick is only £1 at BnQ.

[David Van Via]

Originally posted by smaz
For us from the U.K.: A metre stick is only £1 at BnQ.

I'm going to cry there isn't A BnQ in Orkney.

Oh and Gar thanks for the advice Much appreciated 5 stars!

[smaz]

Originally posted by David Van Via
I'm going to cry there isn't A BnQ in Orkney.

Oh and Gar thanks for the advice Much appreciated 5 stars!

Uhhhh........... Garden Centre?? Or do you guys not have gardens

[EDDIEVRULZ]

if you just wanted a bar to use that wouldnt throw your guitar out of tune, get a set of sperzel's. BUT, i understand the floyd thing. and those OLP's really arent bad guitars. they sound pretty cool.

[David Van Via]

Originally posted by EDDIEVRULZ
if you just wanted a bar to use that wouldnt throw your guitar out of tune, get a set of sperzel's. BUT, i understand the floyd thing. and those OLP's really arent bad guitars. they sound pretty cool.

They certainly do sound nice have your first vote!

[EDDIEVRULZ]

thanks man! right back at you for having the creepiest looking avatar ive ever seen. lol

[David Van Via]

One of my friends says it's creepy too. I just laughed mined you I can see why someone would say that! LOL