Licensed Floyd Rose Mounting Stud replacement

[lamed]

Hi,

I guess the answer to my question is a big NO but it doesn't hurt to ask..

I've got this old Samick KR-650 that has one of those licensed Floyd Rose bridge for which its nearly impossible to find replacement parts. Back when I bought it, a friend of mine told me that I needed one of those as I was into metal... Turns out I'm more into rythm guitar and generally prefer fixed bridges. Over the years, I learned to hate the damn thing and from the day I bought a guitar with a fixed bridge, the Samick began to disapear under dust and rust...

This week I finally began to clean it a little bit in order to sell it for a few bucks, but I don't really know if I'm going to be able to sell my first guitar...

Anyway, here's my question : the head of one of the mounting studs was damaged by using a screwdriver that was too small to set the action (yes, that was me, I'm guilty as hell). It's still usable if you're extra carefull but it would be nice if I cold change it. Is there ANY chance to find a replacement screw that fits the existing insert? Is there any kind of standard for these things, as opposed to other pieces of the tremolo (in fact, I'm lucky enough to own a spare Samick KKT-3 tremolo that I got from my guitar store when I broke a string block, but this does not include the stud and inserts, just the floating part).

[frets]

Hi Lamed,
It will be near impossible to find an exact match. But, for about $10 you should be able to pick up a new set of posts on EBay. In particular, posts for a Jackson Guitar look almost identical to the Sammick. Just type in the EBay search:
Floyd Rose Black Studs Posts Anchors Tremolo
or Jackson Floyd Rose Bridge Anchor Posts Black Fine Thread. But I would go with the posts that fit a Jackson. Fine thread.

[lamed]

Hi,

Turns out the Jacksons are much larger than the samicks.

Not necessarily a bad thing because the insert on the treble side has moved quite a bit, so replacing the inserts with larger ones may be a good idea. I don't know why I didn't notice that earlier... This explains why I had so much trouble setting the action low enough on this side

Anyway, this is something I'm a bit too intimidated to do right now. This goes on the 'things I should do but am too afraid too' list

This guitar is going to gather some more dust until the day I dare trying to change the inserts for the larger Jackson ones.

[newey]

lamed-

If you don't like the FR tremolo, and don't play the guitar much as a result, why not make it into a hardtail? Since it's a Samick, it's not like you would be destroying a classic guitar or anything. You could use it as a backup guitar rather than selling it.

(I'm with you on the FR, never liked those things)

[lamed]

That would be really nice. I had a thought about it but this mod looks out of my league.

As I said, I'm afraid to work on the wood when too much precision is needed, so just replacing the inserts and locking the tremolo seems less risky for a begining.

But if I manage to do this without ruining the guitar completely, I might consider this in the future. Still, I'd have to think of a way to hide this huge hole where the Floyd Rose was...

[newey]

Sept 18, 2020 2:15:41 GMT -5 lamed said:

Still, I'd have to think of a way to hide this huge hole where the Floyd Rose was...

You'd need to fashion a mounting plate that would cover the FR rout and into which the hardtail would be mounted. Would require some metalworking skills.

There is a YouTube video of a guy who used a Schaller tremolo bridge to replace the FR, but it mounts to the FR studs (perfect fit), so that won't help you since you're short a stud.

If you send me the exact dimensions, I can check my parts bin, I have all the pieces of an old Ibanez FR copy, who knows, maybe we get lucky. If it fits, I'll mail it to you gratis.

[lamed]

That's very nice of you. As I live in France, I would definitly pay for the shipping though. 

The Jackson I got seem very similar to the Schaller one :

I assume these are more or less the standard FR dimensions.

The samick screws are much longer and thinner : 5mm diameter instead of 7 and total length is somewhere between 28 and 29mm instead of 26.5. This seems much less common but who knows.

As for changing the inserts, I think the Samick kkt tremolo would fit well on the Jackson screws, but I don't know how to enlarge the holes (inserts would go from 8mm to 10) while keeping them well centered, and probably don't have the right tools to do that. I'll probably give it a shot as paying a luthier to repair this cheap guitar is not an option, but it may well result in a huge mess...

[rogerioprazeres]

Sept 16, 2020 10:25:40 GMT -5 lamed said:

Hi,

Turns out the Jacksons are much larger than the samicks.

Not necessarily a bad thing because the insert on the treble side has moved quite a bit, so replacing the inserts with larger ones may be a good idea. I don't know why I didn't notice that earlier... This explains why I had so much trouble setting the action low enough on this side

Anyway, this is something I'm a bit too intimidated to do right now. This goes on the 'things I should do but am too afraid too' list

This guitar is going to gather some more dust until the day I dare trying to change the inserts for the larger Jackson ones.

Hi there!

Changing the tremolo unit to a better quality one is a very common task in guitar repairs shops. Most of the time, they trash the old cheap parts, so I'm almost sure you can find a new stud for free.

Another option is to take it to a local hardware store to find the thread of your original studs and buy the correct replacement.

Another good option is to let a good Luthier take care of it to you. If you are not a Steve Vai fan, he can probably fix and adjust your original tremolo to work very fine as a one way tremolo (no dive bombs allowed).

Good luck!