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Post by ozboomer on Feb 20, 2011 0:25:47 GMT -5
I have both a Squier Bullet and a Squier Affinity Strat (c. 2006) where both tremolo arms are a bit on the wonky side... that is, they both fit fairly loosely in the tremolo units/bridges. I'm already using the plumber/gasfitter/PTFE tape trick to try and get the tremolo arm into a somewhat 'fixed' position.. and that works Ok.. but the arm still wobbles a little before the trem/bridge actually moves. Now, I wonder if this is something to do with the "Made in China" quality issues or if the tremolo arms are actually not the right ones to use for each guitar (I have even tried swapping the arms between guitars in case I mixed 'em up but that doesn't really help). Actually, I'm trying to learn how/when/the technique of using a tremolo arm (any clues on how to get my head 'round that!?)... and I wonder if it'd be a decent upgrade to try installing one of the Guitar Fetish Vintage Tremolos in the guitars...? ...or is that really a tech/luthier's job? ...or is the upgrade even necessary? (and BTW, I'm not going to start-in on the 6-screw vs 2-screw mounting argument!).. Just a'feelin' a mite clueless here (as is often the case)...
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Post by Double Yoi on Feb 20, 2011 8:17:02 GMT -5
Oz, after reading your post,I installed the arm on the one I got about a year ago, same model you're looking at from GFS. I saw/felt no noticable wobble. Although, This is the first time I've used it and it might wear into being Wobbly. I think the upgrade is well worth it on either of your guitars. I am almost willing to bet if you go with an all steel construction, the guitar will sound better. Tom Morello,(rage against the machine) said part of his technique depended on "the loose tooth" feel on his guitars trem'leo. Hope this helped!
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Post by Double Yoi on Feb 20, 2011 17:43:07 GMT -5
Oz, After about 30 minutes of playing with the trem, no crazy dive bombs, it is now wobbly. Look on the bright side, now you know what you dont want.
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Post by ozboomer on Feb 23, 2011 7:53:50 GMT -5
Oz, After about 30 minutes of playing with the trem, no crazy dive bombs, it is now wobbly. Well, at least it's not just my guitars then. Hmm.. Must search a lil' .. and see if there's any Gotcha!'s to be aware of before I (seriously) start thinkin' about changing the tremolo/bridge on any of my (not so seriously 'broken') guitars.... O'course, I realize that as soon as I start heading down this road, I'll have to do the tuners... the nut... the neck... Man! I don't wanna be a luthier(!)... (I think)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2011 9:17:33 GMT -5
ozboomer, What do you mean "wonky side" (sorry but my english is not good). Doesn't it get stabilized if you screw it all the way?
Anyways, if you have a vintage tremolo you gotta learn to live with it. If you want smth more you gotta go the floyd rose way, but you will lose many of the benefits of the original strat tremolo design (like the ability to adjust saddle height individually for any string).
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Post by ozboomer on Feb 23, 2011 9:28:10 GMT -5
ozboomer, What do you mean "wonky side" (sorry but my english is not good) Don't worry about that - it's probably more Australian than English, anyway When the tremolo (whammy) bar is screwed all the way into the threaded hole on the bridge plate, the arm isn't really "seated" properly; even though it can't be screwed in any further, it's still loose... and wrapping the threads with PTFE (plumber's) tape only helps a little bit -- it's more like the hole and the thickness of the whammy bar are not matched too well. No thank you - simplicity is the thing for me and Floyd Rose is going to be too much like hard work in setup/maintenance, I understand... It's just that I remember the whammy bars on "real" (MIA) Strats seem to "seat" a whole lot better than the bars I have on these Squiers...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2011 9:51:03 GMT -5
Hmm, why dont you just buy/make a slightly fatter arm? Hmmm or just one with slightly shorter threaded end? IIUC, the problem is that the arm's end meats the bottom of the hole, without being seated properly 100% in its place. In my cheapo trem, what happens is the exact opposite, the arm stays seated well, before many rounds before it reaches the last round.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2011 10:06:11 GMT -5
Also another factor of consideration is the 56 vs 52 mm of the E-E spacing. I think american strats have wider bridges.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2011 13:27:13 GMT -5
ooops just came with an idea. If you bend a little bit the threaded part of the arm with a plier? That should make the arm seat better, i think.
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Post by sumgai on Feb 24, 2011 4:51:29 GMT -5
If you bend a little bit the threaded part of the arm with a plier? That should make the arm seat better, i think. +1 right there. Ideas like that are what separate the True Nutz from the wannabes! sumgai
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Post by Double Yoi on Feb 24, 2011 5:15:46 GMT -5
If you use pliers to bend the threaded part, make sure you wrap either the threads or the teeth of the pliers so as not to muff the threads. WADR, Im not feeling this idea. If you bend the pitched area of the arm to much it wont go all the way in as it binds up over the bend and you'll never be able to unbend it straight. I would add more plumbers tape. Eventually, it will stop compressing and stop wobbling.
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Post by sumgai on Feb 24, 2011 12:59:56 GMT -5
Well, the trick here is to install a nut onto the threads first, then use that as a gripping surface for the pliers. Two of them, spaced a little apart, will let you control just where the bend occurs.
The idea here is that you don't so much as "bend it", as you just stress the thing a little. You warp it a tiny bit. You "knock it outta whack", so to speak. That tiny misalignment is all that it takes to 'persuade' the arm to sit still and not wiggle around. In essence, you want to increase the friction, but not to the point where you need a pair of pliers just to twist the thing into the block. This is a very slight tweak, so take care, and proceed slowly.
HTH
sumgai
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Post by JFrankParnell on Feb 24, 2011 16:59:33 GMT -5
i was wondering, what if you take a tap and make threads all the way out the bottom of the 'tone block'. Then, you could screw a bolt up from the back, till the bolt hits the whammy bar. I dunno, maybe that wouldnt do anything.
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Post by roadtonever on Feb 24, 2011 23:02:53 GMT -5
Some cheap guitars come with the most crap-tastic bridges. Bending the arm sounds like a novel idea but if it doesn't work for you look for a Wilkinson brand replacement bridge, they're not very expensive and perfectly fine quality-wise.
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Post by sumgai on Feb 25, 2011 14:54:49 GMT -5
i was wondering, what if you take a tap and make threads all the way out the bottom of the 'tone block'. Then, you could screw a bolt up from the back, till the bolt hits the whammy bar. I dunno, maybe that wouldnt do anything. I've seen this done before, not a bad idea, but more labor intensive than the usual Nutz project.... one must be precise in locating the 'exit' hole out the bottom, or else....... Fender does it with a small Allen setscrew, facing out the back of the block. You access this setscrew by bending the arm all the way down to the body, and look at the exposed side of the block - there it is. In my case, the arm isn't even threaded, it just snaps into place, and the Allen screw provides the tension necessary to keep it from rotating out of the desired position. Then too, speaking of cheap stuff, there's the thought that perhaps the shaft of the arm is not the same diameter as the hole. At that point, no matter what the threads are doing, there's going to be some play in the arm, and that's an extremely undesirable thing. Wilkinson does make some pretty good stuff, just be sure that it fits correctly, both mounting hole-wise and string-wise (the e-to-E string centers). HTH sumgai
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Post by ozboomer on Feb 25, 2011 18:45:47 GMT -5
Some many, varied and useful thinking folks... The NutHouse is proving, once again, to be THE ultimate information resource for all things guitar Wilkinson does make some pretty good stuff, just be sure that it fits correctly, both mounting hole-wise and string-wise (the e-to-E string centers). Actually, that seems to be one of the biggest dramas with the non-USA/Mexico -based manufacturers, that they don't/can't seem to get the sizes right. I assume this is some patent issue... but why do you get this weirdness from (what I assume is) Fender-approved factories? I mean, why aren't the Squier fittings/other hardware exactly the same as the MIA models? ...unless there's some history that Fender has just taken-over the original (unlicensed?) copy-making factories and they don't want to re-tool all their manufacturing? ...or should I put my cynical hat on (not our cynical1 !!), and assume it's made different by design so you HAVE to go to aftermarket suppliers or something...!??! It really makes me nuts sometimes that I buy pickups and the covers do (not) fit... or! the sellers can't be bothered to do some measuring, the same as I have, when I'm asking 'em about the bridges/nuts/tuners/etc I might want to buy from them... *mutter*... *mutter*...
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Post by thetragichero on May 31, 2011 15:56:37 GMT -5
i ordered the wilkinson vintage trem from gfs... it has a drop in arm so i'll let you know if it fares better than their standard trem
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Post by sumgai on May 31, 2011 16:21:35 GMT -5
ozzy,
In a nutshell, we here in the good ol' US of A use The King's Measure (but not the Imperial way of doing it), which is to say, it's not metric like the rest of the world. That translates to, when you go offshore to procure some part, you're liable to get back a slightly different part. How much tolerance you have for that difference is what makes for those "$@^%*!#($" moments when you find the pickup cover doesn't fit, etc.
What happens is nothing more than economy of scale. If I ask for a price on 10,000 bridge assemblies, and I like it, I'll then ask for a sample run of say 20 units. That sample run will cost me 50-100% more, per piece, than the final production run, but I want to be sure I'm getting what I spec'ed out.
Sure enough, alll 20 pieces measure so close to what I want that I give the overseas factory the "go ahead". And equally sure enough, when that shipment comes in, I take out a couple of randomly chosen samples, and Lo and Behold, they're wrong.
How wrong? Depends on my tolerance level for error. If the bridge fits "well enough", then I'll eat the problem, so to speak. I may argue with the factory for awhile, but in the end, unless they're willing to re-do the order - for free - then I'm stuck with the bad pieces. Or worse, I'll re-order, perhaps from someone else with a (hopefully) better Quality Control department, and then I'll dump my bad stock of crapola bridges onto a discount house.
And that's how we end up with non-standard stuff. It works, it looks OK, it's priced right, etc. But interchangability? Forget it.
</today's lesson in market economics>
HTH
sumgai
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Post by sbgodofmetal on May 31, 2011 22:17:13 GMT -5
lts problem like this that justify my choice of hardtails over trems.
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Post by sbgodofmetal on May 31, 2011 22:29:16 GMT -5
l had a first act strat clone years ago, thing sounded amazing but if you even slightly dived with it, it went way off tune. l ended up installing a kahler locking nut off of my old jackson jr. that l had gutted to make some extra pup routes on. lt fixed the problem but it was the first of many bad experiences i've had with trems. All in all l just don't like using them. my current playing axe is my B.C.Rich ST it has a trem on it yes but i removed the arm, and never really use it.
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Post by ozboomer on Jun 1, 2011 2:36:06 GMT -5
Well, all the posts are enlightening, Fanx!, folks... and it's kinda of-interest again as, since the JungleMaster thing fell through (FretCity is winding down)... and anything from Rondo will cost just shy of AUD400 with all the shipping and such... I'm more in an upgrade frame of mind these days anyway...
So, for now, I'm thinking of a couple of other, 'simpler' upgrades for one of the guitars first (pickups, pickguard, electronics, etc)... and then, perhaps, the trem and tuners at a later time.. if I really need 'em, I suppose (!)...
The story will resume (somewhat) later...
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Post by thetragichero on Jun 23, 2011 15:44:26 GMT -5
update on wilkinson trem: they call the arm a 'pop in,' but there's a little allen screw in the back you use to tighten the arm in only problem with putting it in an import strat is you'll have to get the toothpicks and wood glue out and redrill at les four of the holes (which isn't all that hard... i did it without seriously destroying anything!)
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Post by ozboomer on Jun 23, 2011 19:38:46 GMT -5
update on wilkinson trem: they call the arm a 'pop in,' but there's a little allen screw in the back you use to tighten the arm in only problem with putting it in an import strat is you'll have to get the toothpicks and wood glue out and redrill at les four of the holes (which isn't all that hard... i did it without seriously destroying anything!) So, it would seem the conservative view is to always expect you'll need to re-tool something (if not a lot of things) whenever you're replacing parts on non-MIA Strats, eh? I sort-of suspected this and is why I'll probably never do anything about replacing necks or changing bodies or something 'coz I'm surely no luthier(!) Still, by installing that Wilkinson tremolo, you're effectively changing the guitar to have standard (11.3mm / 7/16") string spacing, so you would also need to change the tremolo spring cover (if you used one), eh? ..and I also wonder about the depth of the tremolo block, though, as a Squier Affinity, for example, has a thinner body -- I think the bodies run something like 40mm (1 9/16") for an Affinity, 42mm (1 21/32") for a Bullet and 45mm (1 25/32") for a Standard Strat. Even if I stuck with an 'import' string spacing and used something like their 'Import' Gold Trems (with a steel block)... I think the block depth might be an issue. Anyone shed any light on this? Fanx! again for the info, folks.. John
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Post by thetragichero on Jun 23, 2011 22:25:18 GMT -5
block depth is certainly an issue, which is why i don't/can't put the cover on (with both their standard import trem and the wilkinson) but that's fine with me
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