Welcome to my humble blog where I write the little things concerning Guitar, especially the Electric guitar. I am an avid Project guitar builder and enjoys DIY projects on guitars. Through this blog, I will share with my readers my experiments, findings, projects, recommendations and more. Do check back now and then while I hope you will be able to find the information provided in this blog useful.
Recently, a topic came up in one of the local forums asking about the locking nut of the Vibrato Tremolo Bridges (Floyd Rose). This may seem simple to change but as easy as it may seem, there are some important points to take note of.
1. Measure the existing nut and make sure you get the correct measurements. They usually come in 42mm or 43mm. Don't make the mistake of getting the wrong one.
2. Check if it's top mounted or bottom mounted. The top mounted one has 2 screws that screws into the neck from the top while the bottom mounted has 2 allen key screws that go through the neck from the bottom.
3. Make sure to take note of the way the order the pressure pads are being remove during string changes. You don't want to have the bass string pressure pads on the treble strings and vice versa. This actually kills the pressure pad faster than it can last.
Do note that the Pots shown in the picture above, an All parts potentiometer is of the American size. If you are buying it to replace the Pots in your Ibanez, ESP or other Asian made guitars, it probably won't be a direct fit. You will probably need to drill a larger hole (or whatever creative methods you have to make holes larger) to make it fit.
Gotoh Potentiometer
For Asian made guitars, the one above which is a Gotoh potentiometer is a glove fit. Please do take note that there are different in sizes for potentiometers, usually in either the American or Asian size. Make sure that you make the right purchase when buying replacement parts for your guitar.
Disclaimer:All Parts isn't the only brand that has American sized pots. There are probably other brands out there which I haven't heard of.
This isn't actually my first guitar but it's as close as a first can get. I've actually gave my first electric guitar away to my cousin who wanted to pick up the guitar. Well anyway, this is the first decent electric guitar I bought for myself in 2002. For those who hasn't read about my story on how I eventually get to this, you can find the story here.
This Guitar went through a lot in terms of modification and is considered my test bed for future modifications to come. It originally was an Ibanez RG270DX which was made in Korea. I have nothing against guitars that aren't made in Japan or US but this particular piece isn't very well constructed. The locking nut holes are not well drilled and half of it has been drilled off. Nonetheless, I have sentimental values for this guitar as it is the first guitar I ever bought with my own salary.
The guitar started out with only pick up swap of Dimarzio Evolution, neck and bridge and FS-1 installed as it's main modification. For the longest time it was my main guitar. I was once paranoid about rusting parts and I had the stupidest idea of putting dehumidifier together with the guitar in the bag. The dehumidifier burst off and the contents leaked out without my knowledge. Just after months of returning from the World of Warcraft, I open up the bag, to my horror, most of the parts are rusted. I decided to give it an over haul and this was the second time I modified the guitar again. The whole guitar is being refitted with superior hardware, Gotoh locking nut, Gotoh Floyd Rose licensed tremolo vibrato bridge and Gotoh tuning machine heads.
So, there was once where I managed to try one of those old RG550, where the neck is super thin (17mm first fret and 19mm 12th fret). I decided that I wanted to sand mine down to achieve the same thickness. I bought a pair of vernier calipers and measured the neck. To my horror, the neck measured 20mm on the first fret and 22mm on the 12th fret. It's totally different from what a wizard neck should be (19mm on the first fret and 21mm on the 12th fret). So I proceed and sand down the neck. It took me about 3 hours with a palm sander, to sand the neck down to wizard II thickness. But I was happy with that for a while and kept it that way. I refinished the neck with hand rubbed oil finish.
After that, I read from project guitar forum on how to do a material finish such as the Jem 77FP. Once again, my the DIY bug in got the better of me and this guitar came out as the first choice for an experiment. It was a fun DIY but none the less a lot of hardwork.
After building and assembling a few Ibanez I accumulated an extra Made in Japan (MIJ) Mahogany body and decided to transfer the neck over to the body instead. The new body, a RG520QS body which I sanded down and refinished with Tung Oil. Once again feeling that the neck was still too thick for my liking, I proceed in sanding it down to the thickness of prestige wizard (18mm first fret and 19mm 12th fret). It has a slight different feel compared to a prestige neck though. As I didn't scalped the shape of the neck, the sides are still beefy while the back is flat. To my surprise, the neck is actually quite comfortable. Due to the 400mm radius actually allows comfortable chording while the flat back allows the thumb to grip comfortably and usually keeping the thumb in an upright position. Thanks to the new thickness, it also allows easy scale running without the hindering of baseball bat kind of necks. Due to it's combination of a Korean neck and Made in Japan body, I named it the Frankenstein. The guitar went through a couple of pickup changes. At one point of time, this guitar is fitted with Dragonfire Screamer pickups. I wanted to find out cheaper alternatives and since these screamers are made by Artec, I was more than willing to give it a try. The sound is pretty decent for a pickup about a quarter of a Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan. The main problem with it is, I find the pickup too bassy for my liking. I wanted something with less bass but more mid bass.
The next pair of cheaper but good pickups I've tried are Entwistle Dark Stars. These pickups are special in the way that they are designed around Neodymium magnets instead of the conventional alnico or Ceramic magnets. These pickups are high output and are hot. Soundwise, these pickups are really decent for it's price. Entwistle Dark Star shall stay in this guitar.
Ibanez RG(5)270DX "Frankenstein" Specs neck type: 3pc Made in Korea Wizard II with Prestige thickness neck fingerboard: Rosewood with sharktooth inlay body: Oiled Mahogany body with Quilted Salepe Veneer fret: Jumbo frets bridge: Gotoh Licensed Floyd Rose Bridge neck pu: Entwistle Dark Star neck bridge pu: Entwistle Dark Star bridge
Neck Specs Scale: 648mm/25.5"
a : Width at Nut 43mm
b : Width at Last Fret 54mm
c: Thickness at 1st 18mm
d : Thickness at 12th 20mm
Radius: 400mmR
Often when we buy a low to mid-range licensed Floyd Rose equipped guitar, we might be in for tuning stability hell. More then often, after doing a full pull up, the bridge either doesn't return to true zero position or is just simply out of tune. We might accredit it to string being un-stretched most of the time, but what if the strings has already been stretched?
We can usually fault it on the inferior licensed Floyd Rose bridge that is being constructed with Pot mystery metal with weak knife edges that are prone to blunting. If you are one of those who are looking to replace your bridge with an Original Floyd Rose (OFR), look no further. I have something, in my opinion is superior even to the OFR. The Gotoh Licensed Floyd Rose Tremolo Bridge.
The Good news for this bridge is that it doesn't require a guitar that is pre-fitted with a Floyd Rose routed cavity with an existing Licensed Floyd Rose bridge extra routing. Namely, lower to mid range ESP and Ibanez. What this means is that as long as the user knows how to take out the bridge, it is not actually hard to replace it and is in fact just a matter of swapping the bridge.
The best part about the Gotoh Floyd Rose Bridge is that it comes with a set of lock studs. What this means is more tuning stability compared to even the OFR, which doesn't have the locking stud installed. This is however only for the adventurous who are willing to dabble into some DIY. All the user need to do is actually to pull out the existing bushings in the body of the guitar, re-drill (usually a bigger) hole and hammer in the new bushings.
The Gotoh Floyd Rose Bridge also comes with an existing Brass Block instead of Pot Mystery Metal that usually comes with the low end licensed bridge. This actually improves the tone of the instrument, give it a fuller yet richer sound.
In terms of usage, the Gotoh Floyd Rose Bridge functions smoothly both on pulling up and whamming down and usually return to near absolute Zero without much audible pitch difference. (No Floyd Rose designed Bridge goes back to absolute Zero).
The Arm of the Tremolo has a unique design in which it is internally threaded while there is a screw at the bottom of the tremolo arm holder. The user just needs to turn the tremolo arm in to keep it in the arm holder while there is a separate arm grub screw to adjust the looseness or tightness of the tremolo arm. This greatly allows flexibility on giving the player the option of how they want the Arm to hang in the arm holder.
All and all, the Gotoh Floyd Rose Tremolo Bridge is a huge upgrade from Pot Mystery Metal Licensed Floyd Rose Tremolo Bridge while being priced at almost less than an OFR. This doesn't only improves the guitar tone wise but also in terms of tuning stability, often making a guitar so much nicer to pick up that you probably wouldn't want to put it down.
