I recently resurrected an original Floyd, the made in Germany one with no fine tuners.
Had to get new saddle blocks & an arm to get it functioning.
Anyway I took it all apart , cleaned everything and put it back together and put it in a drawer for future use.
The future came yesterday when I went to install it on an Ibanez SA that had a decent but not inspiring trem, that would only dive.
The studs & posts were in the right place from the original trem, so I pulled the studs, routed the face for the profile of the Floyd & dropped it in.
Perfect fit, but the tone block was too long. It stuck 1/4" out the back of the guitar.
Not a problem because I had another old Floyd husk that had a shorter tone block.
I was elated. I swapped the tone blocks and went about installing & setting up the Floyd into the Ibby when the problem reared it's ugly head.
The springs wouldn't stay in the tone block.
When I'd whammy with my wiggle stick, one or more of the trem springs would exit the guitar.
So I did what any butcher would do.
Instead of researching my problem, I devised a fix that used the two unused spring holes in the tone block.
I drilled & tapped em out to 4-40 and made a bracket that held the springs in place via two screws.
An elegant solution, or so I thought...
Came to find out thru research AFTER the fact, that Floyd trem blocks were directional.
WHAT???
Yep the spring holes are drilled on an angle to KEEP the springs in place.
I had flipped the block. That's why the springs kept going airborne.
What a dumbass. So I took it apart and corrected my blunder.
Restrung it and got everything back together and it worked just fine without the bracket that I had made.
So into the trash can it went.
Lesson learned, when unsure research FIRST!
Hope that my mistake may keep others from erring the same way.:dood:
Had to get new saddle blocks & an arm to get it functioning.
Anyway I took it all apart , cleaned everything and put it back together and put it in a drawer for future use.
The future came yesterday when I went to install it on an Ibanez SA that had a decent but not inspiring trem, that would only dive.
The studs & posts were in the right place from the original trem, so I pulled the studs, routed the face for the profile of the Floyd & dropped it in.
Perfect fit, but the tone block was too long. It stuck 1/4" out the back of the guitar.
Not a problem because I had another old Floyd husk that had a shorter tone block.
I was elated. I swapped the tone blocks and went about installing & setting up the Floyd into the Ibby when the problem reared it's ugly head.
The springs wouldn't stay in the tone block.
When I'd whammy with my wiggle stick, one or more of the trem springs would exit the guitar.
So I did what any butcher would do.
Instead of researching my problem, I devised a fix that used the two unused spring holes in the tone block.
I drilled & tapped em out to 4-40 and made a bracket that held the springs in place via two screws.
An elegant solution, or so I thought...
Came to find out thru research AFTER the fact, that Floyd trem blocks were directional.
WHAT???
Yep the spring holes are drilled on an angle to KEEP the springs in place.
I had flipped the block. That's why the springs kept going airborne.
What a dumbass. So I took it apart and corrected my blunder.
Restrung it and got everything back together and it worked just fine without the bracket that I had made.
So into the trash can it went.
Lesson learned, when unsure research FIRST!
Hope that my mistake may keep others from erring the same way.:dood:
