Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Afghan Dave on February 10, 2012, 07:26:39 PM
-
"I was thinking of some designs for an adjustable tremolo stopper, and then realised there was a common household piece of gear that was a lot cheaper than a Tremol-no. Sure it would require a little permanent surgery, but that didn’t bother me. I’m sure a lot of you won’t be either. I wanted to go from floating to dive-only so I could use my D-Tuna, and this little contraption would enable me to do this."
http://www.lonephantom.com/2012/02/the-4-tremolo-stopper/
(http://www.lonephantom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20120204-183746.jpg)
Read this and tell me what you think... I'm gonna try it! :?
-
"I was thinking of some designs for an adjustable tremolo stopper, and then realised there was a common household piece of gear that was a lot cheaper than a Tremol-no. Sure it would require a little permanent surgery, but that didn’t bother me. I’m sure a lot of you won’t be either. I wanted to go from floating to dive-only so I could use my D-Tuna, and this little contraption would enable me to do this."
http://www.lonephantom.com/2012/02/the-4-tremolo-stopper/
(http://www.lonephantom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20120204-183746.jpg)
Read this and tell me what you think... I'm gonna try it! :?
Oooooh ..... looks a bit dodgey to me Dave.... I heard that the bloke who was selling these made a bolt for it once he got his money.
-
I'm first gonna try to see if I can balance my trem on two springs... If I can, it's a GO! :P
-
brilliant
-
Quite ingenious!
I rather wish I thought of it.
-
I Know...
And you can get solid brass for TONE! :P
If Floyd Upgrades made it, it would be $35.
-
Comment redacted due to utter stupidity
I guess it would have really helped to have actually clicked on the link.
-
Well, it'll work I guess! You'd have to position it very precisely, and presumably it would be good to put some kind of cushion between the bolt and the block to stop nasty vibration-noise.
-
Hell, even if you just used it for easy string changes it's well worth it. Can't see it being too much of a pain on install as long as your trem rides parallel to begin with.
-
As a user of a Floyd Upgrades trem stopper, I would say this home-made effort is good for string changes, but that's where I would leave it, to be honest. Why?
A) You would have to be very, very precise in placing this thing for it to work as an actual, functioning trem-stopper. With the FU one, it's a bracket with an allen bolt through it. Simple, yes, but really adjustable and easy to fine-tune it to get that bridge sitting parallel to the body, which is obviously very important. With this home-made effort, you would have to get it right first time, or risk multiple replacement of the assembly which will make a pigs ear of the wood underneath, never mind the wood structure integrity implications of several attempts at getting the placement right. Eventually there will be a bunch of churned-up wood that is not going to be secure enough for this thing to work properly anyway.
B) Spring room. The pic shows that they have had to take the third spring out of the equation, which to me is not the best thing in the world. It's a minor point, yes, but the whole point of one of these set-ups to me is to basically turn the Floyd into a fixed bridge. Less springs = less tension holding the trem down / fighting against string tension.
C) As has been mentioned by someone else: Natural instrument vibration may cause this thing to rattle, or even may cause the arm to gradually rotate in the lock and *PING* out at inopportune moments, especially bad if someone does this to their gigging guitar. The installer would probably have to do a lot of experimenting with rubber washers and other gubbins to create a "secure" unit, possibly nullifying any of the added tonal effects that they would additionally want from such a piece of kit.
But hey, that's just my $0.02 because I'm a bit of a perfectionist, heh. :lol:
-
That's some twisted genius right there!
-
As a user of a Floyd Upgrades trem stopper, I would say this home-made effort is good for string changes, but that's where I would leave it, to be honest. Why?
Because you paid +$ for your 'floyd upgrade' instead of lateral thinking 'a bolt', maybe why ? 8)
-
Yas! Cheapo diy guitar mods for the win. Wee rubber pad on the end and you don't even need to be super accurate anyway. Marvelous wee idea.
-
Yas! Cheapo diy guitar mods for the win. Wee rubber pad on the end and you don't even need to be super accurate anyway. Marvelous wee idea.
I was thinking a pencil eraser topper!
(http://s6.thisnext.com/media/largest_dimension/445F4A0C.jpg)
-
As a user of a Floyd Upgrades trem stopper, I would say this home-made effort is good for string changes, but that's where I would leave it, to be honest. Why?
Because you paid +$ for your 'floyd upgrade' instead of lateral thinking 'a bolt', maybe why ? 8)
Hmmm... nope. Because without micro adjustment I know I would spend all day mangling the inside of my guitar trying to get a door bolt in the right place. :lol:
I mean if you've got the patience and know-how to get something spot-on, then fair do's to ya. I simply don't and therefore spent a lot of extra money on convenience.
-
*facepalm*
brilliant!
-
Hmmm... nope. Because without micro adjustment I know I would spend all day mangling the inside of my guitar trying to get a door bolt in the right place. :lol:
I mean if you've got the patience and know-how to get something spot-on, then fair do's to ya. I simply don't and therefore spent a lot of extra money on convenience.
well, if you set your guitar up properly, so the bridge is perfectly level (and i do believe if you position the bolt correctly, there would be room enough for a 3rd spring), you just need to set it to the block (and to eliminate rattle, put a little superglue and a rubber pad on it), mark the holes, drill them a tad and just screw the bolt in.
IF you position it right, so that there's a 3rd spring in there, it'll hold down the arm of the bolt too, so it doesn't come lose, but there is potentially enough room to manipulate it (saying potentially, cos i haven't tried it myself, but i might :D )
Now, you could also do this; there is some room for improvement here. The screw holes that hold the bolt down, you can drill them out a bit (make them longer) so you have 1mm of room to micro-adjust the whole bolt assembly. The 4 screws are enough to hold it perfectly in place, if you don't over-tighten them.
I'm seriously thinking of trying this on one of my guitars.
-
i think your right. its not perfect as is, but a few simple mods could make it as good as anything else out there.
i would want a spring putting some pressure on the bolt and a little buffer between bolt and block
probably worth considering upgrading the existing springs to higher tension ones then 2 would be enough for most
-
Hi all, I'm the mad hatter who came up with this idea. I'm glad a number of you found this interesting, and the debate is great. I thought I might post a few points that some of you might have missed in the blog post.
I haven't found my barrel-bolt to rattle at all. I'm quite surprised, but not any issues at all. Lining it up was easy, just some careful placement, make sure the trem isn't moving when you put the bolt up against it, and all is good.
I thought of this when I was theorizing a design for a tremolo stopper after my Tremol-no broke. I then realised when walking through my house that there was already something commonly available that would pretty much do the job. I do have some refinements, and I hope at some point to draw up a proper design, and maybe see about making it. The barrel-bolt will do just fine for the time being though.
-
Thanks for dropping by!
I hope you keep us updated with this and other bits of mad genius. :D
-
No problems. :)
Just follow me on Facebook or Twitter (links on my blog). You can keep up to date with my reviews and crazy DIY. ;)
-
Welcome!
I wouldnt have thought it would rattle. If in doubt and in need of a locked trem (no need for floating) I'd just screw the claw in to tighten the springs.
I'd probably place it as accurately as I could to begin with, but er on the side of too far forward (push trem up very slightly) and file down the stoppy things at the sides that the bar latches on (technical term) to tune the location of the 'locked' position to level if I were worried about inaccurately drilling the holes (which I likely would).